Cheap Money

Picture those commercials for low-interest loans. Sometimes you see posters in banks advertising the “current special of a 2% interest rate for well-qualified buyers” or something along those lines. Those low-interest loans are considered cheap money because it doesn't cost a lot to borrow it. Your cost for borrowing the money is relatively low. The money is cheap.

The opposite of cheap money is dear money, or tight money, when that same loan comes with a super high interest rate, and is harder to qualify for.

There's also a "cheap money" connotation that applies to companies raising cash for their operations by selling equity in themselves when the valuation of their stock is extremely high. Think: a hot biotech company with a high-flying stock issues equity and raises $200 million, even though it has just $10 million in revenues. That equity sale is also termed "cheap money."