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Trading Terminology

Traders often chat with one another about a variety of topics related to financial markets, giving their perspectives and discussing trading ideas and current moves on the markets. While communicating with each other they often use slang to express their thoughts in a shorter form. Some of the most popular slang is listed below.

Asset Allocation: Dividing instrument funds among markets to achieve diversification or maximum return.

Bearish: A market view that anticipates lower prices.

Bullish: A market view that anticipates higher prices.

Chartist: An individual who studies graphs and charts of historic data to find trends and predict trend reversals.

Counterparty: The other organization or party with whom trading is being transacted.

Day Trader: Speculator who takes positions in instruments which are liquidated prior to the close of the same trading day.

Economic Indicator: A statistics which indicates economic growth rates and trends such as retail sales and employment.

Exotic: A less broadly traded market instrument.

Fast Market: Rapid movement in a market caused by strong interest by buyers and / or sellers.

Fed: The U.S. Federal Reserve. FDIC membership is compulsory for Federal Reserve members.

GDP: Total value of a country’s output, income or expenditure produced within the country’s physical borders.

Liquidity: The ability of a market to accept large transactions.

Resistance Level: A price which is likely to result in a rebound but if broken may result in a significant price movement.

Spread: The difference between the bid and ask price of a market instrument.

Support Levels: When a price depreciates or appreciates to a level where analysis suggests that the price will rebound.

Thin Market: A market in which trading volume is low and in which consequently spread is wide and the liquidity is low.

Volatility: A measure of the amount by which an asset price is expected to fluctuate over a given period.

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Controlling Risk

Controlling risk is one of the most important ingredients of successful trading. While it is emotionally more appealing to focus on the upside of trading, every trader should know precisely how much he or she is willing to lose on each trade before cutting losses, and how much he or she is willing to lose in trading account before ceasing trading and re-evaluating.

Risk will essentially be controlled in two ways: by exiting losing trades before losses exceed your pre-determined maximum tolerance (or “cutting losses”), and by limiting the “leverage” or position size you trade for a given account size.

Cutting Losses

Too often, the beginning trader will be overly concerned about incurring losing trades. Trader therefore lets losses mount, with the “hope” that the market will turn around and the loss will turn into a gain.

Almost all successful trading strategies include a disciplined procedure for cutting losses. When a trader is down on a position, many emotions often come into play, making it difficult to cut losses at the right level. The best practice is to decide where losses will be cut before a trade is even initiated. This will assure the trader of the maximum amount he or she can expect to lose on the trade.

The other key element of risk control is overall account risk. In other words, a trader should know before start of trading endeavor how much of trading account he or she is willing to lose before ceasing trading and re-evaluating strategy. If you open an account with $2,000, are you willing to lose all $2,000? $1,000? As with risk control on individual trades, the most important discipline is to decide on a level and stick with it. Further information on the mechanics of limiting risk can be found in trading literature.

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