An extended period (at least two-months) of declining market prices.

In finance, a bond is a debt security, in which the authorized issuer owes the holders a debt and, depending on the terms of the bond, is obliged to pay interest (the coupon) and/or to repay the principal at a later date, termed maturity. A bond is a formal contract to repay borrowed money with interest at fixed intervals.

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A period of rising market prices, during which market sentiment is positive.

A candlestick chart is a style of bar-chart used primarily to describe price movements of a security, derivative, or currency over time.

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A product that can be used in a trade, for example metals or foreign currencies.

Common stock is a form of corporate equity ownership, a type of security. It is called "common" to distinguish it from preferred stock. In the event of bankruptcy, common stock investors receive their funds after preferred stock holders, bondholders, creditors, etc. On the other hand, common shares on average perform better than preferred shares or bonds over time.

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In finance, a contract for difference (or CFD) is a contract between two parties, typically described as "buyer" and "seller", stipulating that the buyer will pay to the seller the difference between the current value of an asset and its value at contract time. (If the difference is negative, then the seller pays instead to the buyer.)

In effect CFDs are financial derivatives that allow investors to take advantage of prices moving up (long positions) or prices moving down (short positions) on underlying financial instruments and are often used to speculate on those markets.

For example, when applied to equities, such a contract is an equity derivative that allows investors to speculate on share price movements, without the need for ownership of the underlying shares. CFDs are currently available in the United Kingdom, The Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Singapore, South Africa, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Sweden, Norway, France, Ireland, Japan and Spain. Some other securities markets, such as Hong Kong, have plans to issue CFDs in the near future.

CFDs are not permitted in the United States, due to restrictions by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on over-the-counter (OTC) financial instruments.

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Convergence trade is a trading strategy consisting of two positions: buying one asset forward — i.e. for delivery in future (going long the asset)—and selling a similar asset forward (going short the asset) for a higher price, in the expectation that by the time the assets must be delivered, the prices will have become closer to equal (will have converged), and thus one profits by the amount of convergence.

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The BDI is one of the purest leading indicators of economic activity. It measures the demand to move raw materials and precursors to production, as well as the supply of ships available to move this cargo. Consumer spending and other economic indicators are backward looking, meaning they examine what has already occurred. The BDI offers a real time glimpse at global raw material and infrastructure demand. It is also affected by real world factors, such as port congestion, weather events, hostilities and the supply of ships which can at times have significant impacts on the price of shipping and cause the index to diverge from trends in economic activity.

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A day trader is a trader who buys and sells financial instruments (e.g. stocks, options, futures, derivatives, currencies) within the same trading day such that all positions will usually be closed before the market close of the trading day. Depending on one's trading strategy, it may range from several to hundreds of orders a day.

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Dividends are payments made by a corporation to its shareholder members. It is the portion of corporate profits paid out to stockholders. When a corporation earns a profit or surplus, that money can be put to two uses: it can either be re-invested in the business (called retained earnings), or it can be paid to the shareholders as a dividend. Many corporations retain a portion of their earnings and pay the remainder as a dividend.

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The doji line is a commonly found pattern in a candlestick chart of financially traded assets (stocks, bonds, futures, etc). It is characterized by being small in length—meaning a small trading range—with an opening and closing price that are virtually equal.

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The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA), also referred to as the Industrial Average, the Dow Jones, the Dow 30, or simply the Dow, is a stock market index, and one of several indices created by Wall Street Journal editor and Dow Jones & Company co-founder Charles Dow. It is now owned by the CME Group, which is the majority owner of Dow Jones Indexes. The average is named after Dow and one of his business associates, statistician Edward Jones. It is an index that shows how 30 large, publicly owned companies based in the United States have traded during a standard trading session in the stock market. It is the second oldest U.S. market index after the Dow Jones Transportation Average, which was also created by Dow.

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The Drawdown is the measure of the decline from a historical peak in some variable (typically the cumulative profit or total open equity of a financial trading strategy).

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The Elliott Wave Principle is a form of technical analysis that traders use to analyze financial market cycles and forecast market trends by identifying extremes in investor psychology, highs and lows in prices, and other collective factors. Ralph Nelson Elliott (1871–1948), a professional accountant, discovered the underlying social principles and developed the analytical tools in the 1930s. He proposed that market prices unfold in specific patterns, which practitioners today call Elliott waves, or simply waves.

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An exchange-traded fund (ETF) is an investment fund traded on stock exchanges, much like stocks. An ETF holds assets such as stocks, commodities, or bonds and trades at approximately the same price as the net asset value of its underlying assets over the course of the trading day. Most ETFs track an index, such as the S&P 500 or MSCI EAFE. ETFs may be attractive as investments because of their low costs, tax efficiency, and stock-like features.

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Fibonacci retracements are a method of technical analysis for determining support and resistance levels. They are named after their use of the Fibonacci sequence. Fibonacci retracement is based on the idea that markets will retrace a predictable portion of a move, after which they will continue to move in the original direction.

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A floor trader is a member of a stock or commodities exchange who trades on the floor of that exchange for his or her own account. The floor trader must abide by trading rules similar to those of the exchange specialists who trade on behalf of others.

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The foreign exchange market (forex, FX, or currency market) is a worldwide decentralized over-the-counter financial market for the trading of currencies. Financial centers around the world function as anchors of trading between a wide range of different types of buyers and sellers around the clock, with the exception of weekends. The foreign exchange market determines the relative values of different currencies.

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Fundamental analysis of a business involves analyzing its financial statements and health, its management and competitive advantages, and its competitors and markets. When applied to futures and forex, it focuses on the overall state of the economy, interest rates, production, earnings, and management. When analyzing a stock, futures contract, or currency using fundamental analysis there are two basic approaches one can use; bottom up analysis and top down analysis.

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A legal agreement to buy or sell a security, commodity or financial instrument at a fixed price on a specified future date.

In finance, a hedge is a position established in one market in an attempt to offset exposure to price changes or fluctuations in some opposite position with the goal of minimizing one's exposure to unwanted risk.

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leverage is a general term for any technique to multiply gains and losses. Common ways to attain leverage are borrowing money, buying fixed assets and using derivatives.

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Margin is collateral that the holder of a financial instrument has to deposit to cover some or all of the credit risk of his counterparty (most often his broker or an exchange).

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Market depth is the size of an order needed to move the market a given amount. If the market is deep, a large order is needed to change the price. Market depth closely relates to the notion of liquidity, the ease to find a trading partner for a given order: a deep market is also a liquid market.

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Market liquidity is an asset's ability to be sold without causing a significant movement in the price and with minimum loss of value. Money, or cash in hand, is the most liquid asset, and can be used immediately to perform economic actions like buying, selling, or paying debt, meeting immediate wants and needs.

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Momentum and rate of change (ROC) are simple technical analysis indicators showing the difference between today's closing price and the close N days ago. Momentum is the absolute difference in the stock or commodity.

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A moving average is commonly used with time series data to smooth out short-term fluctuations and highlight longer-term trends or cycles.

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A Naked Call occurs when a speculator writes (sells) a call option on a security without ownership of that security. It is one of the riskiest options strategies because it carries unlimited risk as opposed to a naked put where the maximum loss occurs if the stock falls to zero.

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A naked put (also called an uncovered put) is a put option where the option writer (i.e., the seller) does not have a position in the underlying stock or other instrument. This strategy is best used by investors who want to accumulate a position in the underlying stock - but only if the price is low enough. If the investor fails to buy the shares, then he keeps the option premium.

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An option is a contract between two parties giving the buyer the right, but not the obligation, to buy or sell an underlying asset at a particular price on or before a particular date.

Pair trading is a market neutral trading strategy enabling traders to profit from virtually any market conditions: uptrend, downtrend, or sideways movement. This strategy is categorized as a statistical arbitrage and convergence trading strategy.

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A pivot point is a price level of significance in technical analysis of a financial market that is used by traders as a predictive indicator of market movement. A pivot point is calculated as an average of significant prices (high, low, close) from the performance of a market in the prior trading period. If the market in the following period trades above the pivot point it is usually evaluated as a bullish sentiment, whereas trading below the pivot point is seen as bearish.

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Point and figure is a charting technique used in technical analysis, used to attempt to predict financial market prices. Point and figure charting is unique in that it does not plot price against time as all other techniques do. Instead it plots price against changes in direction by plotting a column of Xs as the price rises and a column of Os as the price falls.

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Preferred stock, also called preferred shares, preference shares, or simply preferreds, is a special equity security that has properties of both an equity and a debt instrument and is generally considered a hybrid instrument. Preferreds are senior (i.e. higher ranking) to common stock, but are subordinate to bonds.

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Ratio-spread is a strategy in options trading that involves buying some number of options and selling a larger number of other options of the same underlying market and (usually) the same expiration date, but of a different strike price.

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A Registered share is a stock that is registered on the name of the exact owner. If the owner of such a share sells his share, the new owner must register with name and address.

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A resistance level is the opposite of a support level. It is where the price tends to find resistance as it is going up. This means the price is more likely to "bounce" off this level rather than break through it. However, once the price has passed this level, by an amount exceeding some noise, it is likely that it will continue rising until it finds another resistance level.

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In finance, short selling (also known as shorting or going short) is the practice of selling assets, usually securities, that have been borrowed from a third party (usually a broker) with the intention of buying identical assets back at a later date to return to the lender.

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In probability theory and statistics, skewness is a measure of the asymmetry of the probability distribution of a real-valued random variable. The skewness value can be positive or negative, or even undefined.

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With regards to futures contracts as well as other financial instruments, slippage is the difference between estimated transaction costs and the amount actually paid. Brokers may not always be effective enough at executing orders. Market-impacted, liquidity, and frictional costs may also contribute. Algorithmic trading is often used to reduce slippage.

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Spinning top is a Japanese candlesticks pattern with a short body found in the middle of two long wicks. A spinning top is indicative of a situation where neither the buyers nor the sellers have won for that time period, as the market has closed relatively unchanged from where it opened

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Spread betting is any of various types of wagering on the outcome of an event, where the pay-off is based on the accuracy of the wager, rather than a simple "win or lose" outcome, such as fixed-odds (or money-line) betting or parimutuel betting. A spread is a range of outcomes, and the bet is whether the outcome will be above or below the spread.

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A stock trader or a stock investor is an individual or firm who buys and sells stocks in the financial markets.

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A support level is a price level where the price tends to find support as it is going down. This means the price is more likely to "bounce" off this level rather than break through it. However, once the price has passed this level, by an amount exceeding some noise, it is likely to continue dropping until it finds another support level.

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Swing trading is commonly defined as a speculative activity in financial markets whereby instruments such as stocks, indexes, bonds, currencies, or commodities are repeatedly bought or sold at or near the end of up or down price swings caused by price volatility. A swing trading position is typically held longer than a day, but shorter than trend following trades or buy and hold investment strategies that can be held for weeks or months. Profits can be sought by engaging in either Long or Short trading.

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In finance, technical analysis is a security analysis discipline for forecasting the direction of prices through the study of past market data, primarily price and volume.

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A trend line is formed when you can draw a diagonal line between two or more price pivot points. They are commonly used to judge entry and exit investment timing when trading securities.

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The wedge pattern is a commonly found pattern in the price charts of financially traded assets (stocks, bonds, futures, etc.). The pattern is characterized by a contracting range in prices coupled with an upward trend in prices (known as a rising wedge) or a downward trend in prices (known as a falling wedge).

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