Trading Glossary

How the three groups are organized

Technical Analysis holds indicators and chart patterns. You will find measures such as the ADX, Average True Range and Bollinger Bands next to patterns like the double top, head and shoulders and cup and handle, plus candlesticks such as the doji and the hammer. Options & Derivatives covers contracts and pricing: futures, put options, the Black-Scholes model and short-dated terms like 0DTE options. Trading is the broadest group. It covers account mechanics such as margin calls, approaches like hedging and arbitrage, position sizing systems such as the Martingale strategy, and currency vocabulary like yuan versus renminbi. Letter headings appear only where a group has at least one term, which is why some lists skip letters. If a word is missing under the letter you expected, check the other two groups before assuming it is not covered.

Who writes the entries and how they are checked

The glossary is maintained by our Forex & Brokers Desk, the team that also covers broker reviews, regulation checks and trading guides. Entries are drafted with help from AI language models. Automated checks then reject text with unsupported claims or banned phrasing, and that text is rewritten. Each entry shows the team that signs it, the date it was published and the date its text last changed. Those dates move only when the wording changes, not when the site is rebuilt. Where an entry relies on outside material, the sources are listed under “Sources cited on this page”. Glossary terms are not scored or ranked. Scores apply only to brand reviews, and our methodology explains how they are built. If you spot an error in a definition, our corrections page explains how we handle fixes.

Putting definitions to work

A definition tells you what a term means or what an indicator measures. It does not tell you when to buy or sell, and nothing here is financial advice. Several entries describe ideas you can test with numbers before risking money. Margin, leverage and margin call connect directly to the margin calculator, and stop distance and lot size connect to the position size calculator. Pattern and indicator entries are best read alongside a live chart, so you can see how the shape or line looks on real price data. Trading forex, CFDs, futures, options and crypto carries a real risk of loss, and leveraged products can lose money faster than the deposit suggests. Understanding the vocabulary helps you read terms and rules accurately, but it does not reduce that risk.