# Is there one correct abbreviation for millions in financial terms? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [July 7, 2016, 2:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-one-correct-abbreviation-for-millions-in-financial-terms/759311 "2016-07-07T14:56:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Mighty\_Mouse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mighty_mouse/32/7776_2.png) [@Mighty\_Mouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mighty_Mouse)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2016, 2:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-one-correct-abbreviation-for-millions-in-financial-terms/759311/21 "2016-07-08T02:33:59Z")
I work in Finance for a non-financial firm. Whenever we hire someone from a financial services background, we know we are going to have to re-train them to use K & M rather than M & MM. Well not 100% of the time, but mostly. One of these was appointed as my boss a couple years ago. She made me change all the Ks and Ms in a presentaion I prepared for her to Ms and MMs. And heaped ridicule on me for having worked twenty years in Finance and not knowing that basic terminology. No one in the audience understood that usage, and she responded by throwing me under the bus. No one bought it, I’d been there six years and people had seen lots of documents from me. She was gone within two months. Never even moved completed her relocation. ---
**Author:** ![Spiderman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spiderman/32/230_2.png) [@Spiderman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spiderman)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2016, 2:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-one-correct-abbreviation-for-millions-in-financial-terms/759311/22 "2016-07-08T02:45:02Z")
> [@Atamasama](#): > > I’ve never seen “M” as thousand and “MM” as million. I’m not a professional in the finance world but I did major in Business Administration in college and took economics courses. If anyone uses that terminology it’s not used in the US or it’s pretty obscure. > > The standard is K for thousand (kilo) and M for million (mega). > > In Googling the term I do see where M and MM are used by some financial institutions but it seems to be somewhat archaic. M is Roman numeral for 1000 & probably around longer than K. I have worked in the financial world & have seen: [ul][li]m (lower case) for 1000 & M (upper case) for million[/li][li]m or M for 1000 & mm or MM for million.[/ul][/li]It can depend on the firm & what type of business you’re doing; individual trades are rarely for $1 million & institutional trades are rarely in the thousands, so context can play a part in it. In my experience, M is a _lot_ more common than K. ---
**Author:** ![svd678](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/53a042/32.png) [@svd678](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/svd678)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2016, 3:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-one-correct-abbreviation-for-millions-in-financial-terms/759311/23 "2016-07-08T03:33:52Z")
For 2000 years M in Latin and K (signifying chi) in Greek have both stood for 1000. When was it decided differently? Mille and chilioi, respectively. ---
**Author:** ![Pork\_Rind](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pork_rind/32/111_2.png) [@Pork\_Rind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pork_Rind)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2016, 3:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-one-correct-abbreviation-for-millions-in-financial-terms/759311/24 "2016-07-08T03:42:36Z")
In my previous life in the print industry, quantities were always M=1,000 and MM=1,000,000. So I might have called a vendor and asked for a price on 30M books for which he’d turn around and order 75M sheets of paper. 30,000 and 75,000 respectively. ---
**Author:** ![bob\_2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bob_2/32/3341_2.png) [@bob\_2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bob_2)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2016, 9:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-one-correct-abbreviation-for-millions-in-financial-terms/759311/25 "2016-07-08T09:25:52Z")
> [@Pork\_Rind](#): > > In my previous life in the print industry, quantities were always M=1,000 and MM=1,000,000. So I might have called a vendor and asked for a price on 30M books for which he’d turn around and order 75M sheets of paper. 30,000 and 75,000 respectively. When I used to order stuff, I was advised to always be specific about order quantities. We have all heard stories about people who ordered ten of something and then found that they came packed in hundreds so they got a thousand. Using vague abbreviations invited misunderstandings. In a presentation with a lot of large numbers any system that the audience understand is fine. Sending an order for 3M grommets, may well see you trying to explain to your boss, why you ordered three million. (Or, of course, why you specified a well known Minnesota Company) ---
**Author:** ![Tired\_and\_Cranky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a87d85/32.png) [@Tired\_and\_Cranky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tired_and_Cranky)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2016, 2:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-one-correct-abbreviation-for-millions-in-financial-terms/759311/26 "2016-07-08T14:17:33Z")
> [@Omar\_Little](#): > > My personal usage is $10K to refer to ten thousand and $10MM to refer to ten million, and avoid the usage of the single “M” altogether. > > So, is there one correct usage? Or is it more of a common usage thing? > [@Omar\_Little](#): > > My personal usage is $10K to refer to ten thousand and $10MM to refer to ten million, and avoid the usage of the single “M” altogether. > > So, is there one correct usage? Or is it more of a common usage thing? As this board will attest, there isn’t one correct usage. I think that you’re solution is the best one, but the truth is, I’m not that consistent about it. I generally wind up using “K” for thousands and “M” for millions, even where “MM” would probably be clearer. People seem to get what I’m saying. Context makes a big difference and usually removes the ambiguity. If you say your home bathroom remodeling cost $15m, no one is going to guess that you spent $15 million on it. Likewise, if you say that the fancy new train station cost $15m, no one is going to think it cost a little less than an empty single-car garage. Three orders of magnitude removes a lot of confusion. The people who remain confused probably don’t really understand numbers that well anyway. They are all just meaninglessly big. > [@Pork\_Rind](#): > > In my previous life in the print industry, quantities were always M=1,000 and MM=1,000,000. So I might have called a vendor and asked for a price on 30M books for which he’d turn around and order 75M sheets of paper. 30,000 and 75,000 respectively. Of course, here’s the perfect counterexample to my general thesis. A single book is a lot more likely to sell 30,000 copies than 30,000,000, but unless I knew about your business specifically, it’s possible you’d be ordering paper for 30,000,000 books. Maybe you’re a textbook publisher coming out with several new editions of widely used texts. There’s enough room for ambiguity here that clarity is best. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-one-correct-abbreviation-for-millions-in-financial-terms/759311.md?page=1)