Beep

  

The sound a car horn makes in cartoons.

In the financial world, beep is a nickname for "basis point," which is a way of measuring figures given in percentages.

A basis point, or BPS, or beep, equates to one one-hundredth of a percent. So 5% equals 500 basis points. Changes in rates are often given in basis points to avoid confusion about whether the change relates to a number of percentage points, or by an actual percent. (See: Basis Price).

So if you have a 5% rate and you say that there will be a "ten percent increase," that could mean either a) it is rising by 10 percentage points, to go to 15%, or b) it is rising by 10% to go to 5.5%.

To avoid this confusion, you could say "it's rising by 50 beeps." This comes up a lot when the Federal Reserve moves interest rates, which usually move by 25 or 50 basis points at a time.

However, the Fed tends not to say the word "beeps." You can say "beeps," but the chairperson of the Federal Reserve will say "basis points." Because the Fed Chair is not a cartoon car horn.

Related or Semi-related Video

Finance: What Is a Basis Point?124 Views

00:00

finance a la shmoop what is a basis point?

00:05

well one percentage point is a hundred basis points, half a percentage is 50

00:12

basis points, five percentage points is? yeah we're gonna make you do that one on [frowning man talks to camera]

00:17

your own. well the basic idea is that in very large financial transactions those

00:22

involved need highly granular computation grids, and basis points

00:27

divid interest rates much more tightly. if a company borrows three billion

00:31

dollars just noting that the rate is four percent is really vague. it would

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need to be noted as four point zero zero percent. why? because just one basis point [equation on screen]

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i.e. one hundredth of a percent per year on three billion dollars borrowed

00:49

is still a lot of money. that is one basis point on three billion bucks is

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300 grand .so basis points are a real thing in high finance transactions and [smiling man talk to camera]

00:58

okay okay the answer is 500 basis points. yeah all right now you can go back to

01:03

spinning this thingy. [man spins fidget spinner]

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