Glossary: terms starting with J

Typical shape of a closed-end fund's cumulative net cash flows or its running IRR: negative in the first years because of fees, costs and conservative valuations, positive later as values rise and holdings are sold. Credit lines secured on the commitments make the dip shallower without making the fund any better.

Example: Calls of 25, 25, 20, 15 and 10, distributions from year 3: low point of −80 in years 3 and 4, break-even in year 7.

Source: ILPA (2017)

More: Measuring private markets: J-curve, cash flows, smoothing and public proxies

Conspicuously high equity returns in January, especially for small companies and in the first trading days of the year. A common explanation is year-end selling of losing positions for tax reasons.

Source: Rozeff and Kinney (1976); Keim (1983)

More: Stock market seasonality: Sell in May, the January effect and how to test calendar effects

For a concave function such as the logarithm, the value of the mean lies above the mean of the values: log(Σ wᵢ × xᵢ) ≥ Σ wᵢ × log(xᵢ) for weights that sum to 1. That is why the geometric return lies below the arithmetic one, and why a portfolio grows faster than the weighted average of its components' growth rates.

Example: 50/50 of the growth factors 1.2 and 0.9: log(1.05) = 4.88% lies above 0.5 × log(1.2) + 0.5 × log(0.9) = 3.85%.

Index of a country's online job postings relative to a base date, for example from the ads on a large job site. It shows early on how many workers companies are looking for, but only captures the jobs advertised online on that site and depends on its market share.

Source: Indeed Hiring Lab (2026)

More: Alternative data: job ads, Reddit, X, satellites and card payments · Methodology: Economic pulse: how Portfolio Lab calculates early indicators