adjustment

   1. an adverse price movement

   If you are buying, a price adjustment means you will pay more:

    Price adjustment adds £5m to Carsington bill. (Water-bulletin, August 1983)

   However, if you own shares, an adjustment means the prices have gone down:

    Last week's yo-yo swings imply that significant financial risks remain internationally. We are now in a period of adjustment. {Sunday Telegraph, 2 November 1997 — share prices had fallen heavily)

   See also currency adjustment.

   2. the concealment of an illegality

   In particular, the perversion of justice through bribery or influence:

    They caught him molesting a child in a public school in Queens. The desk sergeant had enough sense not to book him. The final adjustment cost about eighteen thousand dollars. (Condon, 1966)

   3. the cure of the mentally ill

   Correcting a deviation from the norm:

    Lucy is a very disturbed child, and a long way from adjustment. (Sanders, 1982)

   4. the subjective alteration of published accounts

   With publicly owned corporations, usually showing increased profits or assets, and with those privately owned, attempting to reduce profit and so avoid paying tax:

    The purpose of the 'adjustments' was to put the bank in the best possible light when the year-end figures ultimately appeared in the annual report. (Erdman, 1986)