Does any one else find it confusing/frustrating when people use M to denote thousands and others use M to mean millions? Some people I work with (formerly commercial bankers) use M to denote thousands and MM to denote millions. To me this should not be done when trying to relay information outside the industry, especially retail investors. The only time I ever use M to denote thousands is when talking about a bond piece, as this is normal bond convention (e.g. 50M = 50,000 par value bond). Any other time, I use K to mean thousands, M to mean millions and B to mean billions so as not to be confused by others. What do you guys think?
I agree that this is confusing, and I don’t understand where this convention applies. I occasionally use MM to mean millions, but I never use M to mean 1000s, unless I’m writing Roman numerals. And I’m never really sure why people use MM, but sometimes I just try to fit in. Can anyone shed some light on what contexts use the M and MM notations? In public policy work, where I was first trained, one uses T, B, M, and K for trillions, billions, millions, and thousands, respectively. So I don’t know where the MM notation comes from.
m is the roman numberal for thousands so some people use it - and yes those people are idiots (typically salesmen/women because it looks bigger and so they can they can jab you about it when you enter their order wrong) i also think there are some systems that add the three zeros after a number if you hit ‘m’ so maybe there are some data entry people out there who do it, too.
bchadwick Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > I agree that this is confusing, and I don’t > understand where this convention applies. I > occasionally use MM to mean millions, but I never > use M to mean 1000s, unless I’m writing Roman > numerals. And I’m never really sure why people > use MM, but sometimes I just try to fit in. > > Can anyone shed some light on what contexts use > the M and MM notations? In public policy work, > where I was first trained, one uses T, B, M, and K > for trillions, billions, millions, and thousands, > respectively. So I don’t know where the MM > notation comes from. Bloomberg and most trading software use M as the convention for thousand. $1,000 = M. $1,000,000 = MM. $1,000,000,000 = MMM. This means the system only needs to know one “variable”, M=$1,000". If you use k, m, b etc, you have more variables. For example, MxM = MM and $1,000 x $1,000 = $1,000,000. K x K =/= KK (ambiguous) Its a widely understood shorthand, just like any other profession. Its not made for retail investors to understand, it is to make communications brief. For instance, traders offer bonds in short hand - O/O 10MM+ EXC 6.15 12 @ E+23 Reads as I own and offer more than $10,000,000 of Commonwealth Edison 6.15% coupon 03/15/2012 bonds at 23 bps more than the synthetic eurodollar forward rate curve.
I was confused about this when I started in the business because 1M should indicate 1,000, but actually indicates 1,000,000 99.9% of the time. I used to write 1MM to indicate million, but I felt like kind of a douchebag because nobody else does that, so now I just follow the crowd and use the wrong method. Kind of like “Indexes” when people mean “Indices,” which I see all the time. But whatev, when you’re rollin mad deep with models and bottles, you can do whatever you want.
As a former latin student, I also hate seeing “Indexes,” when it really should be “Indices.” But it’s also strange to keep seeing people talk about “Treasurys” instead of “Treasuries”.
MM comes from mille mille, where mille = 1,000 (e.g., millennium, millipede, etc.). I just write 1e3, 1e6, and sometimes 1e9 LIKE A BOSS.
A mile (unit of distance) also comes from “Mille Pedium” or 1000 “feet”. A mile is 5280 feet, so how is that 1000 feet? Actually, a in Roman times, the mile said feet, but really referred to 1000 paces, where one pace is how far a typical Roman legionaire would move by walking once with each foot. From a standstill, if you walk once on your left foot, and once on your right, you’ll move between 5 and 6 feet. Do it 1000 times, and you’ll walk about mile.