Stock Market, Investing, Trading & Day Trading 101

Stock

A piece of ownership in a publicly traded company.

Share

One individual unit of stock.

Ticker Symbol

The short abbreviation used to identify an investment.

Shareholder

A person or organization that owns shares of a company.

Equity

Ownership in a company.

Portfolio

All of the investments a person owns.

Asset

Something with financial value.

Stock Market

The overall system where investors buy and sell shares of publicly traded companies.

Stock Exchange

A marketplace where securities are traded.

Bull Market

A market that is generally rising.

Bear Market

A market that is generally falling.

Correction

A meaningful market decline from a recent high.

Volatility

How quickly and dramatically prices move up and down.

Liquidity

How easily an investment can be bought or sold.

Market Capitalization

The total market value of a company's outstanding shares.

Investing

Buying assets with the intention of holding them for months, years, or decades.

Trading

Focusing on shorter-term price movement.

Diversification

Spreading money across multiple investments to reduce concentration risk.

Index

A group of securities used to measure a particular part of the market.

ETF

Exchange-Traded Fund, a basket of investments that trades on an exchange.

Mutual Fund

A pooled investment fund whose shares are generally bought or sold based on the fund's calculated net asset value.

Expense Ratio

The percentage of a fund's assets used annually to cover fund operating expenses.

Fundamental Analysis

Studying the actual company and its financial health.

Technical Analysis

Studying price movement, volume, trends, momentum and chart patterns.

Support

An area where buying pressure has previously appeared.

Resistance

An area where selling pressure has previously appeared.

Volume

The number of shares or contracts traded during a certain period.

Market Order

An order to buy or sell immediately at the best available price.

Limit Order

An order to buy or sell at a specified price or better.

Stop Order

An order activated when a specified stop price is reached.

Going Long

Buying an investment because I expect its price to rise.

Short Selling

Selling borrowed shares because I expect the price to fall.

Day Trading

Buying and selling securities during the same trading day.

Position Size

The number of shares or contracts used in a trade.

Risk Management

Controlling how much money can be lost.

FOMO

Fear Of Missing Out.

Revenge Trading

Taking emotional trades after losing money.

Margin

Borrowing purchasing power from a brokerage firm.

Bitcoin

A decentralized digital asset.

FBTC

A Fidelity fund designed to provide exposure to Bitcoin's price.

Dollar-Cost Averaging

Investing a set amount of money on a repeating schedule.

Compounding

Investment returns generating additional returns over time.

Paper Trading

Practicing trades using simulated money.

Backtesting

Testing a trading strategy against historical market data.

SIE

Securities Industry Essentials Exam.

Series 7

General Securities Representative qualification exam.

Python

A programming language recommended for financial data and algorithmic trading.