Bear Market
A sustained decline of 20% or more in stock prices accompanied by widespread pessimism.
Benchmark
A standard index used to measure a portfolio's performance.
Bid-Ask Spread
The difference between the highest price a buyer will pay and the lowest price a seller will accept for a security.
Blue-Chip Stock
Shares of a large, well-established, financially sound company with a long record of reliable performance and often dividend payments.
Broker
A licensed intermediary who executes securities transactions on behalf of clients in exchange for a fee or commission.
Bull Market
A sustained period of rising stock prices and widespread investor optimism.
Common Stock
The primary class of company ownership shares, granting holders voting rights and a residual claim on assets and earnings after all other obligations are paid.
Cyclical Stock
A stock whose performance is closely tied to the economic cycle, rising during expansions and falling during recessions.
Defensive Stock
A stock that tends to maintain relatively stable earnings and dividends regardless of the state of the overall economy.
Delisting
The removal of a company's shares from a stock exchange, either voluntarily or for failing listing requirements.
Dividend Stock
A share of a company that pays regular cash distributions to shareholders, typically from earnings, providing income alongside potential price appreciation.
Dollar-Cost Averaging
Investing a fixed dollar amount at regular intervals regardless of price.
Equal-Weight Index
A stock market index that assigns the same percentage weight to every constituent regardless of market capitalization.
Equity Risk Premium
The excess return that investing in stocks is expected to provide over the risk-free rate, compensating investors for the higher risk of equities.
ETF
A pooled investment vehicle that holds a basket of securities and trades on a stock exchange throughout the day like a single share.
Ex-Dividend Date
The cutoff date after which new buyers are not entitled to the next declared dividend.
Expense Ratio
The annual fee charged by a fund as a percentage of assets.
Factor Investing
A strategy that targets specific return drivers such as value, size, momentum, or quality.
Float
The number of shares of a company's stock that are freely available for public trading, excluding shares held by insiders, executives, and restricted shareholders.
Fundamental Analysis
A method of valuing a security by examining the underlying company's financial health, competitive position, and economic environment to estimate intrinsic value.
Growth Stock
A share of a company expected to grow revenue and earnings significantly faster than the market average, typically trading at elevated valuations.
Insider Trading
The buying or selling of a company's securities by someone with access to material non-public information about the company, which is illegal in most circumstances.
Institutional Ownership
The percentage of a company's outstanding shares held by institutional investors such as mutual funds, pension funds, and hedge funds.
Large-Cap
A publicly traded company with a market capitalization generally above $10 billion, representing the largest and most established firms.
Limit Order
An order to buy or sell a security at a specified price or better, giving the trader control over execution price but no guarantee of execution.
Listed Company
A public company whose shares are traded on an organized stock exchange, meeting that exchange's listing requirements.
Lock-Up Period
A contractual restriction preventing insiders from selling shares after an IPO, typically lasting 90 to 180 days.
Cap-Weighted Index
An index where each component's weight is proportional to its market capitalization.
Correction
A short-term decline of 10–20% in a stock index or asset price from a recent peak.
Market Crash
A sudden, severe decline in stock prices across a broad section of the market, typically 20% or more in a short period.
Market Efficiency
The degree to which asset prices fully and immediately reflect all available information.
Market Index
A composite measure that tracks the performance of a selected group of stocks representing a market or sector.
Market Liquidity
The ease with which an asset can be bought or sold quickly at a fair price without significantly affecting its market price.
Market Order
An order to buy or sell a security immediately at the best available current price, prioritizing execution speed over price certainty.
Market Sentiment
The overall attitude and emotional disposition of market participants toward a particular security or financial market at a given point in time.
Mid-Cap
A company with a market capitalization typically between $2 billion and $10 billion, offering a blend of growth potential and relative stability.
Momentum Investing
A strategy that buys recent outperformers and sells recent underperformers.
Moving Average
A continuously updated average of a security's price over a set lookback period, used to smooth short-term noise and identify trends.
NASDAQ
The world's second-largest stock exchange by market capitalization, known for listing technology and growth companies.
Portfolio
A collection of financial assets held by an investor.
Preferred Stock
A class of equity with priority over common stock for dividend payments and asset distribution in liquidation, typically without voting rights.
Primary Market
The market where new securities are issued and sold for the first time, enabling issuers to raise capital directly from investors.
Record Date
The date on which a company identifies shareholders eligible to receive a dividend.
RSI
A momentum oscillator scaled from 0 to 100 that measures the speed and magnitude of recent price changes to identify overbought or oversold conditions.
Secondary Market
The financial marketplace where previously issued securities are bought and sold between investors, as opposed to being purchased directly from the issuing company.
Sector Rotation
An investment strategy of shifting capital between market sectors based on where they are in the economic cycle to capture relative outperformance.
Short Interest
The total number of shares sold short and not yet repurchased to close the position.
Short Selling
Borrowing shares to sell at the current price, then repurchasing them later at a lower price to profit from the decline.
Short Squeeze
A rapid price surge in a heavily shorted stock that forces short sellers to buy back shares to cover their positions, amplifying the price move.
Small-Cap
A publicly traded company with a market capitalization typically below $2 billion, characterized by higher growth potential and greater volatility.
Stock Dilution
The reduction in existing shareholders' ownership percentage and earnings per share that occurs when a company issues additional shares.
Stock Exchange
An organized marketplace where securities such as stocks and bonds are bought and sold between investors.
Stock Market
A network of exchanges where buyers and sellers trade shares of publicly listed companies.
Stock
A share of ownership in a publicly traded corporation.
Stop-Loss Order
An order that automatically sells a security when its price falls to a specified level, designed to limit an investor's loss on a position.
Technical Analysis
A method of evaluating securities by analyzing historical price and volume data to forecast future price movements and identify trading opportunities.
Trading Halt
A temporary suspension of trading in one or more securities, ordered by an exchange or regulator to allow the market to absorb material information.
Trading Volume
The total number of shares or contracts traded for a security during a given period, typically one trading day.
Underwriting
The process by which an institution evaluates and assumes financial risk on behalf of a client, used in securities issuance, insurance, and lending.
Value Stock
A stock trading below its estimated intrinsic value based on fundamental metrics such as earnings, book value, or cash flow.
VIX
The CBOE Volatility Index, a real-time measure of expected S&P 500 volatility over the next 30 days derived from option prices, often called the fear gauge.
Volatility
A statistical measure of how sharply and rapidly the price of an asset changes over time.
Warrant
A company-issued derivative giving the holder the right to buy shares at a fixed price before a set expiration date.