1 Which Nebraska city is the home of legendary investor Warren Buffett and his company, Berkshire Hathaway?
Answer: OMAHA (5 letters)
◀ All past puzzles
Finance terms from the week of Monday, March 16, 2026
35 clues and answers from Monday, March 16, 2026 to Sunday, March 22, 2026, each with a plain-language definition where the term is one worth knowing. These puzzles are no longer playable; today's game is on the play page and the last seven days are in the practice archive.
Terms covered: market, flash, buttonwood, rolling, futures, patriot, fiduciary, ponzi, clearing, tightening, gamma, deleveraging, and more.
Monday, March 16, 2026
2 In 1992, a single currency trader famously "broke the Bank of England" by aggressively short-selling the British pound. His massive position forced the UK to withdraw from the European Exchange Rate Mechanism and earned him over a billion dollars in profit in a single day. What is the last name of this legendary hedge fund manager?
Answer: SOROS (5 letters)
3 What is the term for an order to buy or sell a stock immediately at the best available current price?
Answer: MARKET (6 letters)
A market order: an instruction to buy or sell immediately at the best price currently available.
4 In 2010, the US stock market experienced a chaotic event where major indices, including the Dow, plummeted nearly 10% in just a few minutes before rapidly recovering. It was caused by a combination of high-frequency trading algorithms and a large automated sell order that triggered a chain reaction. What specific term is now used to describe this sudden, irrational market collapse and rebound?
Answer: FLASH (5 letters)
The flash crash of May 6, 2010, when major US indices fell about 9% and recovered within minutes.
5 In 1792, 24 brokers signed an agreement under a specific type of tree, effectively founding the NYSE. What kind of tree was it?
Answer: BUTTONWOOD (10 letters)
The 1792 agreement among 24 New York brokers, signed near a buttonwood tree on Wall Street, that led to the New York Stock Exchange.
Tuesday, March 17, 2026
1 In a massive $32 billion deal, which search giant acquired the cloud security firm Wiz in 2025?
Answer: GOOGLE (6 letters)
2 In early 2026, a supply disruption in which narrow waterway caused a spike in global oil prices?
Answer: HORMUZ (6 letters)
3 Which country’s sovereign debt was downgraded twice in 2025, continuing to weigh on the Eurozone in early 2026?
Answer: FRANCE (6 letters)
4 In the largest railroad deal in history, Union Pacific agreed to acquire which company for $89 billion to create the first transcontinental US railroad?
Answer: NORFOLK (7 letters)
5 What term describes shifting a futures position from a near-month contract to a further-out month?
Answer: ROLLING (7 letters)
Moving a futures position from a contract that is close to expiry into a later-dated one, to stay in the market without taking delivery.
Wednesday, March 18, 2026
1 Global markets are currently bracing for "Triple Witching" this Friday, which involves the simultaneous expiration of stock options, index options, and what third instrument?
Answer: FUTURES (7 letters)
A standardised exchange-traded contract to buy or sell an asset at a set price on a set future date.
2 In 1911, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a massive oil trust held an illegal monopoly under the Sherman Antitrust Act, forcing it to be split into 34 smaller companies. What was the surname of the tycoon who founded it?
Answer: ROCKEFELLER (11 letters)
3 Passed shortly after 9/11, this act greatly expanded the "Know Your Customer" (KYC) requirements for banks to prevent the funding of terrorism. What is the name of this act?
Answer: PATRIOT (7 letters)
The USA PATRIOT Act of 2001, which expanded anti-money-laundering requirements for financial institutions.
4 Under the 2025 "Retirement Security Rule," financial advisors are legally required to act in the "best interest" of their clients when providing advice on 401(k) rollovers. What is the formal legal term for this high standard of care?
Answer: FIDUCIARY (9 letters)
A person or institution legally obliged to act in another's interest ahead of their own.
5 Named after an Italian immigrant who ran a "postage stamp" arbitrage scheme in 1920, this term describes a fraudulent investing scam that generates returns for earlier investors with money taken from later investors. What is the one-word name?
Answer: PONZI (5 letters)
A fraud paying existing investors with money from new ones rather than from genuine returns, requiring perpetual new inflows to survive.
Thursday, March 19, 2026
1 Following geopolitical instability and supply concerns, Brent crude surged sharply, reminding markets of sensitivity to disruptions in which global resource?
Answer: OIL (3 letters)
2 Recent stress in commercial real estate has been concentrated in office properties, particularly in major urban centers what sector is under pressure?
Answer: OFFICE (6 letters)
3 The growing adoption of blockchain-based settlement systems by financial institutions is aimed at reducing friction in what post-trade process?
Answer: CLEARING (8 letters)
The process between a trade being agreed and settled, in which obligations are confirmed, netted and guaranteed - usually by a central counterparty standing between buyer and seller.
4 When central banks shrink their balance sheets by letting securities roll off without reinvestment, reducing system liquidity, what is this process called?
Answer: TIGHTENING (10 letters)
Central bank policy that restrains activity - raising rates or shrinking the balance sheet - usually to bring inflation down.
5 A derivatives desk hedges second-order sensitivity to volatility changes rather than price or delta, what Greek are they managing?
Answer: GAMMA (5 letters)
The rate at which an option's delta changes as the underlying price moves - the second derivative of option value with respect to price.
Friday, March 20, 2026
1 When funding costs spike and leveraged players must unwind positions rapidly, causing cascading price moves, what is this event called?
Answer: DELEVERAGING (12 letters)
Reducing debt relative to equity or assets, by repaying borrowings, raising capital, or selling assets.
2 Despite cooling headline CPI, equities sold off as real yields rose sharply, compressing multiples even as earnings held what valuation driver is being repriced?
Answer: DISCOUNT (8 letters)
A reduction from a reference price; in valuation, the rate used to convert future cash flows into present value.
3 A pricing model fails because it assumes continuous markets, but in reality prices jump discretely during stress what assumption is violated?
Answer: CONTINUITY (10 letters)
The assumption in many pricing models that prices move smoothly rather than jumping.
4 Investors overweight recent winners, reinforcing trends beyond what fundamentals justify, what behavioral bias is this?
Answer: RECENCY (7 letters)
Recency bias: weighting recent events more heavily than older ones when forming expectations.
5 The 2008 financial crisis was triggered by the collapse of structured products tied to U.S. housing what underlying asset class drove these securities?
Answer: MORTGAGES (9 letters)
Loans secured against real property, where the lender can foreclose if the borrower fails to pay.
Saturday, March 21, 2026
1 A famous 1992 currency trade broke a European peg after massive short selling pressure, what currency was attacked?
Answer: POUND (5 letters)
2 The bursting of the late-1990s tech bubble wiped out speculative internet stocks, what sector was primarily affected?
Answer: TECHNOLOGY (10 letters)
3 The U.S. housing boom was fueled by loans extended to borrowers with weak credit profiles what were these loans called?
Answer: SUBPRIME (8 letters)
Lending to borrowers with weak credit histories, priced at higher rates to compensate for elevated default risk.
4 A coordinated agreement in 1985 aimed to depreciate the U.S. dollar relative to other currencies, what is this agreement called?
Answer: PLAZA (5 letters)
The Plaza Accord of 1985, an agreement among the United States, Japan, West Germany, France and the United Kingdom to weaken the dollar through coordinated intervention.
5 A hedge fund blowup in 2021 caused massive losses for prime brokers due to hidden leverage via swaps, what was the fund?
Answer: ARCHEGOS (8 letters)
Sunday, March 22, 2026
1 Moving beyond simple chatbots, what is the specific term for the autonomous AI systems now being deployed by banks like Goldman Sachs to execute trades and manage workflows?
Answer: AGENTIC (7 letters)
2 With traditional bank lending tightening in early 2026, what fast-growing alternative lending market, in which funds rather than banks lend directly to companies, is increasingly becoming a primary source of corporate funding?
Answer: PRIVATE (7 letters)
Private credit: lending by funds and other non-bank institutions directly to companies, without a syndicated loan or public bond.
3 What is the 4-letter acronym for the digital currency that the U.S. Senate recently moved to temporarily ban the Federal Reserve from issuing?
Answer: CBDC (4 letters)
A central bank digital currency - a digital form of sovereign money issued directly by the central bank, unlike commercial bank deposits.
4 Nasdaq recently proposed a "Fast Entry" rule to bypass traditional seasoning periods, specifically aimed at integrating which closely watched "mega-IPO" into the Nasdaq-100 within 15 days?
Answer: SPACEX (6 letters)
5 Under the 2026 "Basel IV" implementation, what is the 6-letter term for the minimum capital requirement intended to limit the benefit a bank can derive from using internal models?
Answer: OUTPUT (6 letters)
The output floor in bank capital rules, which limits how far a bank's own internal models can reduce its required capital below the standardized calculation.