Trading terms glossary
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Scalp
“Scalping” is the process of opening and closing a position very quickly, with the goal of profiting from small price movements.

SEC
The SEC is the US Securities and Exchange Commission. It is the government agency which regulates markets United States to protect investors. It also oversees mergers and acquisitions of companies.

Sectors
A sectors is a division within an economy or market, used for analysing and comparing companies with activities and interests.

Share buyback
A share buyback is when a company buys back its own shares back from private investors. Once shares are bought back by the company they are considered cancelled, but can be redistribution in the future. Share buybacks are sometimes done as a tax-efficient way to return money to shareholders.

Share price
The share or stock price is the amount it costs to buy a single share of a company. This price is determined by the market and fluctuates. Share prices typically increase when a company is regarded as having a promising future, or when it reports better than expected earnings, and will fall when reporting missed expectations. Share prices may also fall following news or events expected to impact the company negatively.

Shares (stocks, cash equities)
A shares is a unit of ownership in a company, usually traded on the stock market. They are also referred to as cash equities or stocks.

Short
Short describes a trade that will incur profit if the asset being traded decreases in price. This is also referred to as going short, shorting or short-selling.

Learn more about Short Trading

Short squeeze
When an asset starts to move up in price, this can cause traders holding short positions to rush to cover their positions and minimize potential losses.

Learn more about Short Squeeze

Short-selling
The act of selling an asset that you do not currently own. The hope of short-selling is that the asset will decrease in value, at which point the trader can close their trade for a profit. In contrast to this, if a shorted asset rises in value, closing the position results in a loss for the trader.

Slippage
Slippage is when the price an order is executes at does not match the price at which it was made.

Smart order router (Smart order routing)
Smart order routing is an automated online trading process that looks for trading liquidity, and is used as an indicator in certain trading strategies.

SNB
Abbreviation for the Swiss National Bank, the central bank for Switzerland.

Spot Price
The spot price refers to the price of an asset at any given time, available for immediate purchase/delivery at that moment.

Spread
Spread refers to the difference in price between the bid(buy) and offer(sell) price for a tradable asset.

Stock exchange
A stock exchange is a centralised location where a publicly traded companies shares are traded. Stock exchanges tradable assets are limited to stocks, bonds and exchange traded products. There are many major stock exchanges operating in different countries, e.g. the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq in the United States, the Japan Exchange Group, Honk Kong Stock Exchange, London Stock Exchange, Swiss Exchange, and more.

Stock index
A stock index is a group of shares used to paint a general picture of a particular sector, exchange or economy. Stock indexes are typically made from a certain number of the top shares from a given exchange, e.g. the ASX200 is based on the 200 largest stocks listed on the Australian Stock Exchange.

Stock symbol
A stock symbol is an abbreviation used to identify the shares of a publicly traded companies. e.g. the stock symbol of Apple Inc. on the Nasdaq is NASDAQ:AAPL.

Stop Loss Order
A stop loss is a limit order which triggers a trade at a predetermined price. Stop loss orders are useful for closing positions in response to a sudden unfavorable market movement, e.g. in the event the value of an asset suddenly crashes, a stop loss order can automatically sell the asset when it reaches a specified price to limit losses, rather than continuing to hold the asset while it continues to fall in value.

Strike Price
The strike price is the agreed price for an underlying asset, this price forms the basis of an options contract.

Support level
Support level refers to a price price which a given asset may have difficulty falling below, due to a majority of traders looking to buy around this price.

Swaps
Learn more about Swaps.