Financial Glossary
Key terms used in cryptocurrency, forex, metals, and commodity markets.
- Terms
- 130
- Letters
- 18
A
- All-Time HighThe highest price an asset has ever traded at, abbreviated ATH. Distance below the ATH is commonly quoted as a measure of drawdown.
- Ascending TriangleA flat upper boundary with a rising lower boundary, so the range narrows from below. It completes when price closes above the flat resistance line.
- Automated Market MakerA decentralised exchange design that prices trades from a mathematical formula over pooled reserves rather than by matching individual buy and sell orders.
- Average Directional IndexAn indicator, abbreviated ADX, that measures trend strength on a 0–100 scale without indicating direction. Readings below 20 suggest no trend; above 25 suggest a trend is present.
B
- Baseline RateThe rate at which price moved a given way over a given period without any signal present. It is the comparison a signal's success rate has to beat to mean anything.
- Bear FlagA sharp decline followed by a short, shallow drift against it inside two parallel lines. It completes on a close below the lower line.
- Bearish EngulfingA falling candle whose body completely covers the body of the previous rising candle.
- Bearish HaramiA small falling candle whose body sits entirely inside the body of the previous, larger rising candle.
- Belt HoldA long candle that opens at one extreme of its range and closes near the other, with almost no wick on the opening side. A bullish belt hold opens at its low; a bearish one opens at its high.
- Bid-Ask SpreadThe gap between the highest price a buyer will pay and the lowest a seller will accept. It is the immediate cost of entering and exiting a position.
- Bollinger BandsA moving average plotted with bands set a number of standard deviations above and below it, so the bands widen when volatility rises and contract when it falls.
- BridgeA protocol that moves value between blockchains, typically by locking an asset on one chain and issuing a representation of it on another.
- Broadening FormationTwo diverging boundaries — higher highs and lower lows in the same stretch — so the range widens rather than narrows.
- Bull FlagA sharp advance followed by a short, shallow drift against it inside two parallel lines. It completes on a close above the upper line.
- Bullish EngulfingA rising candle whose body completely covers the body of the previous falling candle.
- Bullish HaramiA small rising candle whose body sits entirely inside the body of the previous, larger falling candle.
C
- Candlestick ChartA price chart where each period is drawn as a body spanning the open and close, with wicks extending to the high and low. The body is coloured by whether the close was above or below the open.
- Canonical URLThe address declared as the authoritative version of a page when the same content is reachable through several URLs, so that search engines consolidate signals on one.
- Centralised ExchangeA company-operated trading platform that holds customer funds and matches orders on its own internal ledger. Abbreviated CEX.
- Chart PatternA recognisable shape in price action — such as a head and shoulders, triangle, or channel — traditionally read as indicating a likely continuation or reversal.
- Circulating SupplyThe number of coins publicly available and tradeable right now, excluding tokens that are locked, reserved, staked under a lock-up, or provably burned.
- CommodityA basic physical good traded in standardised units, such as crude oil, natural gas, or agricultural products, where one unit is interchangeable with another.
- ConfluenceThe coincidence of several independent signals pointing the same way at the same time, on the theory that agreement between methods is more reliable than any one of them.
- Contract AddressThe unique on-chain address where a token's smart contract is deployed. It is the only unambiguous identifier for a token, since names and ticker symbols can be duplicated freely.
- CorrelationA measure from −1 to +1 of how closely two assets move together. Positive means they tend to rise and fall in step; negative means they move oppositely.
- Cup and HandleA rounded bottom followed by a smaller, shallower pullback near the level where the cup began. It completes on a close above the rim.
- Currency PairA quotation of one currency against another, where the first is the base and the second shows how much of it one unit of the base is worth.
- CustodyWho controls the private keys to an asset. Self-custody means the holder controls them; third-party custody means an exchange or institution does.
D
- Dark Cloud CoverA falling candle that opens above the previous rising candle's high and closes below the midpoint of its body.
- Death CrossThe crossing of a shorter moving average below a longer one, usually the 50-day below the 200-day, traditionally read as a bearish signal.
- Decentralised ExchangeAn exchange where trades settle directly between wallets through smart contracts, with no operator taking custody of funds. Abbreviated DEX.
- Decentralised FinanceFinancial services — lending, trading, derivatives — built as smart contracts on public blockchains rather than operated by an institution. Abbreviated DeFi.
- Descending TriangleA flat lower boundary with a falling upper boundary, so the range narrows from above. It completes when price closes below the flat support line.
- Diamond TopA broadening phase followed immediately by a narrowing one, so the outline widens and then converges. It completes on a close below the lower boundary of the narrowing half.
- DojiA candle whose open and close are almost the same price, leaving a very small body and, usually, wicks on both sides. It is read as indecision — buyers and sellers finishing where they started.
- Double BottomTwo troughs at approximately the same level separated by a peak, completing when price closes above that peak.
- Double TopTwo peaks at approximately the same level separated by a trough, completing when price closes below that trough.
- Dragonfly DojiA doji whose open, close and high are all near the top of the candle, leaving a long lower wick and effectively no upper one.
- DrawdownThe decline from a peak to a subsequent low, expressed as a percentage. Maximum drawdown is the largest such decline over a period.
E
- Edge ScoreOur own per-asset reading, built by weighting each recent indicator signal by the historical edge we have measured for it. Signals with no proven edge contribute nothing.
- Evening StarThree candles after an advance: a long rising one, a small-bodied one, then a long falling one closing well into the first candle's body.
- Exponential Moving AverageA moving average that weights recent prices more heavily than older ones, so it responds faster to a change in direction than a simple average of the same length.
F
- Falling ChannelPrice declining between two roughly parallel downward-sloping lines, each touched more than once.
- Falling WedgeTwo downward-sloping boundaries that converge, with the upper line falling faster than the lower. It completes on a close above the upper line.
- Foreign ExchangeThe market in which currencies are traded against one another, quoted as pairs such as EUR/USD. Abbreviated forex or FX.
- Freezable TokenA token whose issuer can prevent specific accounts from transferring their balance.
- Fully Diluted ValuationWhat a project's market capitalisation would be if every token that will ever exist were in circulation today, at today's price. Abbreviated FDV.
- Funding RateA periodic payment between holders of long and short perpetual futures positions, set so the contract price tracks the spot price. When it is positive, longs pay shorts.
G
- Gas FeeThe payment made to a blockchain's validators for the computation and storage a transaction consumes, priced in the network's native token.
- Golden CrossThe crossing of a shorter moving average above a longer one, most commonly the 50-day above the 200-day, traditionally read as a bullish signal.
- Governance TokenA token that confers voting rights over a protocol's parameters, treasury, or upgrades, in proportion to the amount held.
- Gravestone DojiA doji whose open, close and low are all near the bottom of the candle, leaving a long upper wick and effectively no lower one.
H
- HammerA candle with a small body near the top and a lower wick at least twice the body's length, appearing after a decline.
- Hanging ManA candle with a small body near the top and a long lower wick, appearing after an advance.
- Harami CrossA harami whose second candle is a doji — so the small inside body is not merely small but effectively absent.
- Harmonic PatternA family of five-point shapes — Gartley, Bat, Butterfly, Crab — whose legs are required to stand in specific Fibonacci ratios to one another rather than merely to look a certain way.
- Hash RateThe total computing power committed to mining a proof-of-work network, measured in hashes per second.
- Head and ShouldersA three-peak shape where the middle peak is the highest and the two outer peaks are roughly level. The line drawn under the two troughs is the neckline, and the pattern is said to complete when price closes below it.
- HoneypotA token whose contract permits buying but blocks or taxes selling to the point of impossibility, trapping buyers' funds.
- Horizontal ChannelPrice oscillating between two roughly parallel horizontal lines, each touched more than once.
I
- Impermanent LossThe shortfall a liquidity provider experiences relative to simply holding the two assets, arising when their relative price changes after the deposit.
- Indexable PageA page eligible to appear in search results, as opposed to one served with a noindex directive that keeps it out while remaining readable and crawlable.
- Ingestion WorkerA background process that fetches data from external providers on a schedule and writes it to our own storage, so that user traffic never triggers an outside API call.
- Integrity CheckAn automated comparison of each asset's current price against the most recent candle in its own stored history, run periodically to surface unit and mapping errors.
- Inverse Head and ShouldersThe head-and-shoulders shape turned upside down: three troughs with the middle one deepest, completing when price closes above the neckline drawn across the two intervening peaks.
- Inverted HammerA candle with a small body near the bottom and an upper wick at least twice the body's length, appearing after a decline.
L
- Layer 1A base blockchain that settles its own transactions and provides its own security, such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, or Solana.
- Layer 2A network that processes transactions off a base chain while inheriting its security by settling proofs or data back to it, reducing cost and congestion.
- LiquidityHow readily an asset can be bought or sold without moving its price. Deep liquidity means large orders fill near the quoted price; thin liquidity means they do not.
- Liquidity PoolA smart contract holding reserves of two or more tokens, against which an automated market maker executes trades. Depositors earn a share of trading fees.
- Long-Legged DojiA doji with long wicks on both sides, so the period covered a wide range and still finished where it began.
- Look-Ahead BiasA flaw in backtesting where a calculation uses information that was not yet available at the moment it claims to act, producing results that could never have been achieved live.
M
- MACDMoving Average Convergence Divergence: the difference between two exponential moving averages, plotted with a signal line. Crossings of the two lines are read as momentum shifts.
- Market CapitalisationThe total value of a cryptocurrency's circulating supply, calculated as the current price multiplied by the number of coins in circulation. It is the standard measure of a project's relative size.
- Meme CoinA token whose value rests on community attention and cultural momentum rather than on a product, cash flow, or technical claim.
- MempoolThe set of transactions that have been broadcast to a network but not yet included in a block.
- Mining DifficultyA network parameter that adjusts how hard it is to find a valid block, keeping the average time between blocks roughly constant as mining power changes.
- Mintable SupplyA token contract that retains the ability to create new tokens after launch, diluting existing holders whenever it is used.
- Morning StarThree candles after a decline: a long falling one, a small-bodied one that gaps or drifts lower, then a long rising one closing well into the first candle's body.
- Moving AverageThe average price over a fixed number of recent periods, redrawn each period. It smooths short-term noise to make the underlying direction easier to read.
O
- Open InterestThe total value of derivative contracts on an asset that are currently open — neither closed out nor settled. It counts positions, not trades.
- Order BookThe live list of buy and sell orders for a trading pair, showing at what prices and in what size other participants are willing to trade.
- Orphan PageA page that no other page on the site links to. It may be reachable through a sitemap, but nothing within the site vouches for it.
P
- Piercing PatternA rising candle that opens below the previous falling candle's low and closes above the midpoint of its body.
- Proof of ReservesA cryptographic attestation by an exchange demonstrating that it holds assets matching customer balances at a point in time.
- Proxy ContractA contract that forwards calls to a separate implementation contract, so that the logic can be replaced later without changing the address holders interact with.
R
- R-MultipleThe result of a trade measured in units of the risk it took. Losing exactly the planned amount is −1R; making twice it is +2R.
- Real World AssetsTokens representing claims on off-chain assets such as treasury bills, real estate, private credit, or commodities. Abbreviated RWA.
- RectanglePrice oscillating between two roughly horizontal boundaries for long enough that both have been tested more than once. It completes on a close beyond either.
- Relative Strength IndexA momentum oscillator, abbreviated RSI, that compares the size of recent gains to recent losses on a 0–100 scale. Readings above 70 are conventionally called overbought and below 30 oversold.
- Renounced OwnershipThe state where a token contract's owner address has been set to the zero address, permanently removing the ability to call owner-restricted functions such as minting, pausing, or blacklisting.
- Rising ChannelPrice advancing between two roughly parallel upward-sloping lines, each touched more than once.
- Rising WedgeTwo upward-sloping boundaries that converge, with the lower line rising faster than the upper. It completes on a close below the lower line.
- Risk-Reward RatioThe distance from entry to target divided by the distance from entry to stop. A ratio of two means the target is twice as far away as the stop.
- Round-Trip CostThe total cost of entering and exiting a position: the exchange's fee on both sides plus the slippage between the intended and achieved price.
- Rounding BottomA gradual, curved transition from falling to rising, with no single sharp low. It completes when price closes above the level where the curve began.
- Rounding TopA gradual, curved transition from rising to falling, with no single sharp high. It completes when price closes below the level where the curve began.
- Rug PullAn exit scam in which a project's team removes the liquidity backing a token or dumps a large reserved allocation, collapsing the price and leaving holders unable to sell.
S
- Safe Haven AssetAn asset expected to retain or gain value during market stress, traditionally gold, the US dollar, and government bonds of stable issuers.
- Sample SizeThe number of observations a statistic rests on. Small samples produce figures that look precise and are not.
- Shape FitHow closely the price action matches the geometry a pattern requires, expressed as a percentage. It is the coefficient of determination of the lines or curve fitted to the pattern's turning points.
- Shooting StarA candle with a small body near the bottom and a long upper wick, appearing after an advance.
- SlippageThe difference between the price expected when an order is placed and the price at which it actually fills, caused by the order consuming more than one level of the order book.
- Smart ContractProgram code deployed to a blockchain that executes automatically when its conditions are met, without an intermediary holding or releasing funds.
- Spot PriceThe price for immediate delivery of an asset, as distinct from a futures price for delivery at a later date.
- StablecoinA token designed to hold a constant value against a reference asset, usually the US dollar, backed either by reserves held off-chain or by on-chain collateral and algorithmic mechanisms.
- StakingLocking tokens to help secure a proof-of-stake network or to earn protocol rewards, usually with a delay or penalty attached to withdrawal.
- Stochastic OscillatorA momentum indicator that locates the closing price within its recent high-low range on a 0–100 scale, on the reasoning that closes cluster near the highs in an uptrend.
- Structured DataMachine-readable markup embedded in a page, usually as JSON-LD, describing what the page is about in a vocabulary search engines understand.
- Support and ResistancePrice levels at which buying has previously halted declines (support) or selling has halted advances (resistance), often revisited because other participants watch the same levels.
- Survivorship BiasThe distortion that arises from studying only the assets or strategies that still exist, while the ones that failed and were delisted are absent from the data.
- Symmetrical TriangleTwo converging boundaries, one falling and one rising, with neither dominant. It completes on a close beyond either line.
T
- Taker RatioThe share of trading volume executed by orders that crossed the spread — takers — split by direction. A ratio above one means buy-side takers outweighed sell-side ones.
- Three Black CrowsThree consecutive falling candles, each opening within the previous body and closing near its own low.
- Three White SoldiersThree consecutive rising candles, each opening within the previous body and closing near its own high.
- TimeoutA backtested trade that reached neither its target nor its stop before its allotted time expired, and was closed at the market price when it did.
- Token BurnThe permanent removal of tokens from circulation by sending them to an address from which they cannot be retrieved, reducing total supply.
- TokenomicsThe economic design of a token: how many exist, how they are distributed, how new ones are created or destroyed, and what holding one entitles the holder to.
- Total Value LockedThe aggregate value of assets deposited in a protocol's contracts, abbreviated TVL, used as a rough measure of adoption.
- Trading PairTwo assets quoted against each other on an exchange, such as BTC/USDT. The first is the base asset being priced; the second is the quote asset it is priced in.
- Trading VolumeThe total value of an asset traded over a given period, usually 24 hours. It measures activity and, indirectly, how easily a position can be entered or exited.
- Triple BottomThree troughs at approximately the same level, completing when price closes above the highest of the intervening peaks.
- Triple TopThree peaks at approximately the same level, completing when price closes below the lowest of the intervening troughs.
- Trust ScoreA composite rating assigned to an exchange based on reported liquidity, order book depth, trading volume plausibility, and operational transparency.
- Turnover RatioTrading volume over a period divided by market capitalisation — how many times the outstanding supply changed hands.
- Tweezer BottomTwo adjacent candles whose lows are at almost the same price, the first falling and the second rising.
- Tweezer TopTwo adjacent candles whose highs are at almost the same price, the first rising and the second falling.
V
- VestingA schedule under which allocated tokens are released to a team or investors over time rather than at launch, intended to align them with the project's longer-term outcome.
- VolatilityThe degree to which an asset's price moves over time, usually measured as the standard deviation of its returns. High volatility means large moves in both directions.