#TradingTools101 Here's a curated list of 100 essential trading terms and concepts that every investor—especially beginners—should know. These cover the basics of markets, strategies, risk management, and trading psychology.
📈 Market Basics
Stock/Share – A unit of ownership in a company.
Shareholder – An individual or entity that owns shares in a company.
Stock Market – A marketplace where stocks are bought and sold.
Bond – A fixed-income investment where an investor loans money to an entity or government for a defined period at a fixed interest rate.
Dividend – A portion of a company’s earnings paid to shareholders.
ETF (Exchange-Traded Fund) – A fund that holds a collection of investments, like stocks or bonds, and is traded on stock exchanges, just like a single stock.
Index – A measurement of a section of the stock market (e.g., S&P 500, NASDAQ).
IPO (Initial Public Offering) – The process by which a private company becomes publicly traded by offering shares to the public.
Security – A financial asset that can be traded, such as stocks, bonds, or options.
Liquidity – The ease with which an asset can be bought or sold without affecting its price.
📊 Trading Instruments & Strategies
Options – Financial derivatives that give the holder the right, but not the obligation, to buy or sell an asset at a predetermined price before a certain date.
Futures – Contracts obligating the buyer to purchase, or the seller to sell, an asset at a predetermined future date and price.
Margin – Borrowed money from a brokerage firm to trade financial assets.
Leverage – The use of various financial instruments or borrowed capital to increase the potential return of an investment.
Short Selling – Selling an asset not owned by the seller, with the intention of buying it back at a lower price.
Swing Trading – A style of trading that seeks to capture gains in an asset over a few days to several weeks.
Day Trading – The act of buying and selling financial instruments within the same trading day.
