Business
Business is the activity of making one's living or making money by producing or buying and selling goods or services. Simply put, it is "any activity or enterprise entered into for profit. It does not mean it is a company, a corporation, partnership, or have any such formal organization, but it can range from a street peddler to General Motors." The term is also often used colloquially (but not by lawyers or public officials) to refer to a company, but this article will not deal with that sense of the word.
Business Administration
Business administration is management of a business. It includes all aspects of overseeing and supervising business operations and related field which include Accounting, Finance and Marketing.
Investment
In general, to invest is to allocate money (or sometimes another resource, such as time) in the expectation of some benefit in the future – for example, investment in durable goods, in real estate by the service industry, in factories for manufacturing, in product development, and in research and development. However, this article focuses specifically on investment in financial assets.
Investment Banking
An investment bank is typically a private company that provides various finance-related and other services to individuals, corporations, and governments such as raising financial capital by underwriting or acting as the client's agent in the issuance of securities. An investment bank may also assist companies involved in mergers and acquisitions (M&A) and provide ancillary services such as market making, trading of derivatives and equity securities, and FICC services (fixed income instruments, currencies, and commodities).
Banking
There is no group of people on the planet more stupid than bankers. They should be called bonkers. Look at the famous banks that are suddenly losing billions, because they handed out loans like lunatics.
Michael Winner, English film director and producer. From his interview in The Daily Mail (UK) newspaper, 17th June 2008.
Business
An artisan busies himself with his work for three hours each day and spends nine hours in study.
Maimonides, Treatise 3: “The Study of the Torah,” Chapter 1, Section 12, H. Russell, trans. (1983), p. 52
Business Administration
To those who run businesses, profits are obviously desirable and losses deplorable. But economics is not business administration. From the standpoint of the economy as a whole, and from the standpoint of the central concern of economics — the allocation of scarce resources which have alternative uses — profits and losses play equally important roles in maintaining and advancing the standards of living of the population as a whole.
Thomas Sowell, Basic Economics (4th ed., 2010)