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Trading Glossary

Take a look at our list of the financial terms associated with trading and the markets. From beginners starting their trading journey to experts with decades of experience, all traders need to clearly understand a huge number of terms.

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Liquidity

What is Liquidity?

Liquidity refers to how easily or quickly an asset can be bought or sold in a secondary market. Liquid investments can be sold readily and without paying considerable fees. This enables their holders to trade them for cash when needed.

What are the three types of liquidity?
Traders and business owners use three types of liquidity ratio to assess an enterprise. Quick ratio, cash ratio and current ratio. These different measures of liquidity are often used in tandem, but each have their own merits and applications independently.

What happens when liquidity is low?
Stocks with low liquidity are more difficult to sell. Traders may take a bigger loss if they cannot sell the shares when they want to. Liquidity risk is the risk that traders won’t find a market for their assets. This may prevent them from entering or exiting at the desired moment.

What is a good liquidity for a stock?
A stock is considered to have good liquidity when it can be easily bought or sold without significantly affecting the stock's price. This means that there are a large number of buyers and sellers actively trading the stock, and the bid-ask spread (the difference between the highest price a buyer is willing to pay and the lowest price a seller is willing to accept) is small. 

Acquisition

What is an Acquisition?

An Acquisition is a business transaction where one company buys all, or part, of another company's shares or assets. This can be done in an attempt to gain control of, and expand on, the target company's market while also gaining or at least conserving resources.

There are three main forms of “pairing business together”:

  • Acquisitions – When both business entities continue their operations in one form or another.
  • Mergers – When only one of the entities remains while the other is taken over.
  • Conglomeration / Amalgamation – When both business entities are reformed into a new one.

As part of the Acquisition process, the acquiring company purchases the target business's shares or assets, which gives it the authority to make use of the target’s assets as if they are its own.

Why do companies make acquisitions?
Companies make acquisitions as there are several benefits to doing so, including lower entry barriers, growth and market influence. There are also some challenges and difficulties associated with this process. These include conflicts of cultures, redundancy, contradicting objectives and unmatched businesses.

What are the four types of acquisitions?
There are four types of acquisitions that companies perform.

  1. A Horizontal acquisition happens when company acquires another company that is in the same business.
  2. A Vertical acquisition is defined as one company acquiring another which is in a different position on market or the supply chain.
  3. Conglomerate acquisitions happen when the company buying the target and the target company itself operate in unrelated industries or are engaged in unrelated functions.
  4. Congeneric acquisition occurs when an acquiring company and the acquired company market different products or services, yet sell to the same customers. 

Volatility

What is Volatility?

Volatility is the amount of uncertainty or risk associated with the size of changes in a security's value. It is measured by calculating the standard deviation of returns over a given period. High volatility means the price of an asset can change dramatically over a short time period in either direction. Traders often take advantage of volatility by speculating on stocks, options, and other financial instruments.

What causes market volatility?
Market volatility can be caused by a variety of factors including economic data releases, political events, changes in interest rates, and unexpected news or events. It can also be caused by changes in investor sentiment, speculation and market manipulation.

How do you know if a market is volatile?
A market is considered volatile if prices change rapidly, unpredictably, and significantly. This can be measured using volatility indices or by analyzing price movements and fluctuations over time.

Equity in Trading

What is equity in trading?

Equity is the value of a trader's account, representing the total assets minus any margin used to open trades. It reflects their financial position and potential financial outcomes from any trading activities as they currently stand. Traders can use equity to decide when to enter or exit positions and what size positions to take.

What is difference equity and stock?
For traders, stock and equity are synonymous terms as stocks represent equity ownership in a company. Assets, liabilities, and shareholders' equity are items found on the balance sheet.

What is difference between equity and account balance?
Equity is the total account balance including profits/losses from open positions, whereas the account balance is simply the total money deposited in an account before any trades have been made.

Limit Order

What is a Limit Order?

A limit order is an order to buy or sell an asset such as a security at a specific price or better than that price. Traders wishing to define a maximum price for either buying or selling an asset can use limit orders. By placing a limit order they tell a broker to buy or sell a particular stock at a certain price or better than that price (lower for buying, higher for selling). This order is executed only if the transaction can be processed at the limit set in the order.

Is a limit order a good idea?
A key benefit of using a limit order is to ensure that the stock is bought or sold at a certain price point or better than that price point. There is of course the risk of not being able to execute that order as that specific price may never reach that limit as set in the order.

What are the types of limit order?

There are several types of limit orders in trading: 

Buy Limit Order: An order to buy a security at a specific price or lower. 

Sell Limit Order: An order to sell a security at a specific price or higher. 

Buy Stop Limit Order: A stop order to buy a security at a specific price or higher, only activated once a specified stop price has been reached. 

Sell Stop Limit Order: A stop order to sell a security at a specific price or lower, only activated once a specified stop price has been reached. 

Trailing Stop Limit Order: A type of stop order where the stop price is set at a fixed amount or percentage below or above the market price, and adjusts as the market price moves.
 

Commodity Tracking - DB Powershares

DBC, also known as the PowerShares DB Commodity Tracking ETF, tracks 14 commodities based on the futures curve. It aims to limit the effect of contango and maximise the effect of backwardation so that investors improve their returns. The commodities included in the ETF are gasoline, heating oil, Brent crude oil, WTI crude oil, gold, wheat, corn, soybeans, sugar, natural gas, zinc, copper, aluminium and silver.

Unlike other commodity ETFs, DBC rolls future contracts based on the shape of the future curve, rather than following a schedule. This allows the ETF to generate the best roll yield by minimising losses and maximising backwardation.

Curve DAO Token

Curve acts as a liquidity pool for stable cryptocurrencies. CRV DAO Tokens are given to users who provide liquidity in their pools. Those pooled funds are used by traders to exchange different stable coins, thus avoiding slippage and high fees. Curve DAO Token are priced in USD and is tradeable via the CRV/USD symbol.

A-D

Acquisition

What is an Acquisition?

An Acquisition is a business transaction where one company buys all, or part, of another company's shares or assets. This can be done in an attempt to gain control of, and expand on, the target company's market while also gaining or at least conserving resources.

There are three main forms of “pairing business together”:

  • Acquisitions – When both business entities continue their operations in one form or another.
  • Mergers – When only one of the entities remains while the other is taken over.
  • Conglomeration / Amalgamation – When both business entities are reformed into a new one.

As part of the Acquisition process, the acquiring company purchases the target business's shares or assets, which gives it the authority to make use of the target’s assets as if they are its own.

Why do companies make acquisitions?
Companies make acquisitions as there are several benefits to doing so, including lower entry barriers, growth and market influence. There are also some challenges and difficulties associated with this process. These include conflicts of cultures, redundancy, contradicting objectives and unmatched businesses.

What are the four types of acquisitions?
There are four types of acquisitions that companies perform.

  1. A Horizontal acquisition happens when company acquires another company that is in the same business.
  2. A Vertical acquisition is defined as one company acquiring another which is in a different position on market or the supply chain.
  3. Conglomerate acquisitions happen when the company buying the target and the target company itself operate in unrelated industries or are engaged in unrelated functions.
  4. Congeneric acquisition occurs when an acquiring company and the acquired company market different products or services, yet sell to the same customers. 

Commodity Tracking - DB Powershares

DBC, also known as the PowerShares DB Commodity Tracking ETF, tracks 14 commodities based on the futures curve. It aims to limit the effect of contango and maximise the effect of backwardation so that investors improve their returns. The commodities included in the ETF are gasoline, heating oil, Brent crude oil, WTI crude oil, gold, wheat, corn, soybeans, sugar, natural gas, zinc, copper, aluminium and silver.

Unlike other commodity ETFs, DBC rolls future contracts based on the shape of the future curve, rather than following a schedule. This allows the ETF to generate the best roll yield by minimising losses and maximising backwardation.

Curve DAO Token

Curve acts as a liquidity pool for stable cryptocurrencies. CRV DAO Tokens are given to users who provide liquidity in their pools. Those pooled funds are used by traders to exchange different stable coins, thus avoiding slippage and high fees. Curve DAO Token are priced in USD and is tradeable via the CRV/USD symbol.

E-H

Equity in Trading

What is equity in trading?

Equity is the value of a trader's account, representing the total assets minus any margin used to open trades. It reflects their financial position and potential financial outcomes from any trading activities as they currently stand. Traders can use equity to decide when to enter or exit positions and what size positions to take.

What is difference equity and stock?
For traders, stock and equity are synonymous terms as stocks represent equity ownership in a company. Assets, liabilities, and shareholders' equity are items found on the balance sheet.

What is difference between equity and account balance?
Equity is the total account balance including profits/losses from open positions, whereas the account balance is simply the total money deposited in an account before any trades have been made.

I-L

Liquidity

What is Liquidity?

Liquidity refers to how easily or quickly an asset can be bought or sold in a secondary market. Liquid investments can be sold readily and without paying considerable fees. This enables their holders to trade them for cash when needed.

What are the three types of liquidity?
Traders and business owners use three types of liquidity ratio to assess an enterprise. Quick ratio, cash ratio and current ratio. These different measures of liquidity are often used in tandem, but each have their own merits and applications independently.

What happens when liquidity is low?
Stocks with low liquidity are more difficult to sell. Traders may take a bigger loss if they cannot sell the shares when they want to. Liquidity risk is the risk that traders won’t find a market for their assets. This may prevent them from entering or exiting at the desired moment.

What is a good liquidity for a stock?
A stock is considered to have good liquidity when it can be easily bought or sold without significantly affecting the stock's price. This means that there are a large number of buyers and sellers actively trading the stock, and the bid-ask spread (the difference between the highest price a buyer is willing to pay and the lowest price a seller is willing to accept) is small. 

Limit Order

What is a Limit Order?

A limit order is an order to buy or sell an asset such as a security at a specific price or better than that price. Traders wishing to define a maximum price for either buying or selling an asset can use limit orders. By placing a limit order they tell a broker to buy or sell a particular stock at a certain price or better than that price (lower for buying, higher for selling). This order is executed only if the transaction can be processed at the limit set in the order.

Is a limit order a good idea?
A key benefit of using a limit order is to ensure that the stock is bought or sold at a certain price point or better than that price point. There is of course the risk of not being able to execute that order as that specific price may never reach that limit as set in the order.

What are the types of limit order?

There are several types of limit orders in trading: 

Buy Limit Order: An order to buy a security at a specific price or lower. 

Sell Limit Order: An order to sell a security at a specific price or higher. 

Buy Stop Limit Order: A stop order to buy a security at a specific price or higher, only activated once a specified stop price has been reached. 

Sell Stop Limit Order: A stop order to sell a security at a specific price or lower, only activated once a specified stop price has been reached. 

Trailing Stop Limit Order: A type of stop order where the stop price is set at a fixed amount or percentage below or above the market price, and adjusts as the market price moves.
 

M-P

Q-T

U-Z

Volatility

What is Volatility?

Volatility is the amount of uncertainty or risk associated with the size of changes in a security's value. It is measured by calculating the standard deviation of returns over a given period. High volatility means the price of an asset can change dramatically over a short time period in either direction. Traders often take advantage of volatility by speculating on stocks, options, and other financial instruments.

What causes market volatility?
Market volatility can be caused by a variety of factors including economic data releases, political events, changes in interest rates, and unexpected news or events. It can also be caused by changes in investor sentiment, speculation and market manipulation.

How do you know if a market is volatile?
A market is considered volatile if prices change rapidly, unpredictably, and significantly. This can be measured using volatility indices or by analyzing price movements and fluctuations over time.

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