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Best Effort:

: When a SECURITIES UNDERWRITER (the intermediary between a securities issuer and the public; usually an investment bank) undertakes to make a public offering of a security/issue (a stock or  bond issued by a corporation) on behalf of its client, without purchasing any of the issue, and with the understanding that the underwriter will only sell as much as can be sold at whatever price he can get.  No guarantees.  A firm commitment is the opposite and more common situation, in which the underwriter guarantees the sale of a certain quantity of the issues at a certain price.

: The term is frequently used by financial scam artists in their "contracts" with intended victims.  The scam artist's definition is that they will get the best deal or number of "trades" possible, but that they cannot guarantee the number of "trades" made in any one week or month.  This is supposed to demonstrate how honest and up front they are being with the investor.  It means nothing at all.  It is merely part of the confidence psychology.

HIGH-YIELD INVESTMENT PROGRAM scams twist the last part of the definition to include supposed COMMITMENT HOLDERS and PRINCIPALS having the right to trade blocks of whatever form of NEGOTIABLE INSTRUMENT they want, be it TREASURY BILL, DEBENTURES, LETTERS OF CREDIT, or so-called PRIME BANK GUARANTEES.