A handy reference: whenever an abbreviation recurs in a page, you will find it here, explained in a single line. The list grows with the dossiers.
1 Orders of magnitude
Notations for quantity and price (short scale, as used on the English pages).
kThousand. Example: “kt” = thousand tonnes.
mMillion. Example: “$5m” = five million dollars.
bnBillion (109, short scale). Example: “$20bn”.
tnTrillion (1012). Example: “$20tn”. Note: this is the French “mille milliards”, not the French “billion”.
MtMillion tonnes.
ktThousand tonnes.
$/tDollars per tonne: the price of a commodity.
%Percent.
bpsBasis points, i.e. 0.01%. One hundred basis points make 1%.
σSigma: volatility, the typical size of an asset's swings.
2 Economy & finance
Institutions, marketplaces and indicators.
GDPGross Domestic Product: the wealth produced by a country in a year.
ECBEuropean Central Bank.
FedFederal Reserve: the central bank of the United States.
PFUPrélèvement forfaitaire unique: France's flat tax on capital income (31.4% in 2026).
LMELondon Metal Exchange: the world's leading metals exchange.
JGBJapanese Government Bond.
RO ScoreOptimal Return (Rendement Optimal): DfinA's in-house index, which weighs real return by risk.
3 Commodities & industry
The trade acronyms from the resource dossiers.
ICSGInternational Copper Study Group: the reference body for the copper market.
SX-EWSolvent Extraction–Electrowinning: copper extraction by leaching with sulfuric acid (about 20% of output).
TC/RCTreatment and Refining Charges: the fee paid to smelters to refine copper concentrate.