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Trading glossary

Every trading word explained in plain language.

Ask price
The price you buy at. It is a little higher than the bid price.
Bid price
The price you sell at.
Spread
The difference between the ask and the bid price.
Pip
The standard price step in forex. For EURUSD one pip is 0.0001; for USDJPY it is 0.01.
Lot
The trade size. One standard forex lot is 100,000 units of the base currency; 0.01 is a micro lot.
Leverage
Borrowed buying power. With 1:100 leverage, $1,000 of margin controls a $100,000 position.
Margin
Money set aside from your balance to keep a trade open.
Free margin
Equity minus the margin in use. It is what you can use for new trades.
Margin level
Equity divided by used margin, in percent. A low margin level can lead to a stop out.
Equity
Your balance plus or minus the profit or loss of open trades, plus bonus and credit.
Balance
Your money without the result of open trades.
Stop loss
An order that closes your trade at a set loss to limit risk.
Take profit
An order that closes your trade at a set profit.
Pending order
An order to buy or sell later at a price you choose (limit or stop).
Buy limit
Buy below the current price, expecting it to bounce up.
Sell limit
Sell above the current price, expecting it to fall back.
Buy stop
Buy above the current price, expecting the move up to continue.
Sell stop
Sell below the current price, expecting the move down to continue.
Swap
Overnight interest credited or charged on positions kept open after the daily close.
Stop out
Automatic closing of trades when the margin level falls too low.
Long
A buy position.
Short
A sell position.
Volatility
How much and how fast a price moves.
Liquidity
How easily a market can be bought or sold without moving the price much.
Candlestick
A chart bar showing the open, high, low and close of a period.
Support
A price area where buyers have stepped in before.
Resistance
A price area where sellers have stepped in before.
Trend
The general direction of the price: up, down or sideways.
Moving average
The average price over a number of bars, used to see the trend.
Bollinger Bands
Bands above and below a moving average that widen when the market is volatile.
CFD
Contract for difference: you trade the price change without owning the asset.
Rise / Fall
A fixed-time trade: choose whether the price ends higher or lower after a set time.
Copy trading
Automatically opening the same trades as a trader you follow.
Bonus
Extra trading funds. Bonus can be used for trading but cannot be withdrawn.
KYC
Know your customer: identity checks required before deposits and withdrawals.