Every term is defined twice: once the way a filing would put it, and once the way somebody would explain it to you across a table. The second one is usually the one that sticks.
Showing 87 terms
An option giving its buyer the right, but not the obligation, to buy the underlying at a set price by expiry.
The buyer's maximum loss is the premium, which is the whole appeal. The seller collects that premium and carries the entire remaining risk — the half most beginners never look at.
A broker’s dealer desk, which places and cancels orders on a client’s spoken instruction.
The fastest route on the day it answers and the slowest when a thousand other clients have had the same idea at the same moment. Store the number offline, because looking it up needs the website that is currently down.
A mechanism that collects orders without matching, then executes them all at one price.
The mandi before the gates open. It is why a market order in the pre-open is far safer than one at 9:16.
The published written record of a company’s earnings conference call with analysts.
Filed publicly under SEBI rules, so you need no broker relationship. Four quarters read side by side beat one call listened to live.
A management call following results, including an unscripted analyst question session.
Skip the prepared remarks. The Q&A is where management answers what they did not choose.
A demand for additional funds when collateral behind a leveraged position falls below the required level.
Pay up or the broker sells for you — usually at the worst price, in the falling market that caused the call.
A trading mode in which orders collect through a window and match at a single price at the end of it, instead of matching continuously.
There is no live bid-ask to work against — you place an order and learn afterwards what it did. That is precisely why illiquid and surveillance-bound securities are the ones put into it.
Open interest in puts divided by open interest in calls, read contrarily as a gauge of crowd positioning.
Open interest does not record intent. Heavy put positioning is often institutions selling puts at a strike they are happy to buy at — bullish positioning that a naive reading reports as fear.
Executing a rule-based strategy through software that places orders automatically.
Usually described as retail being front-run by machines. The accurate version is narrower: algorithms compete for very short-term moves, which makes intraday harder and barely touches someone holding for months.
An unscripted question put to management during an earnings call.
When three analysts ask the same thing, either it matters or the first two answers were poor.
Arranging the figures that get published on the reporting date — typically repaying borrowings shortly before it — so the closing position reads better than the position carried through the year.
Debt on one date can be arranged; twelve months of accrued interest cannot. An implied borrowing rate far above the rates printed in the borrowings note is how the gap shows.
A period’s figures arrived at by subtraction rather than by direct measurement — typically the March quarter, being the audited full year minus the reviewed nine months.
Every year-end audit adjustment lands in it, whichever quarter it actually belonged to. That is why the fourth quarter is lumpier than the three before it.
Combining protection and investment into a single product, typically to the buyer’s disadvantage.
The combo meal of finance. Unbundled, the same money buys far more cover and a far better investment.
A market oscillating without net progress, typically with ADX below about 20.
Every breakout fails. Signals still fire; they simply do not follow through.
Interest charged on a revolving credit card balance, typically 3–4% a month.
The most expensive money most Indians ever borrow — 36–48% a year, and paying the minimum takes over eight years to clear.
Searching historical data across many combinations until one of them shows a statistically significant pattern.
Twelve months, five weekdays, four quarters and roughly 250 trading days guarantee some winners by chance alone. A seasonal effect counts only if you can name the mechanism before you look at the returns.
The first step in enforcing a security interest — a notice calling on the borrower to discharge the full liability within sixty days, after which the lender may take possession.
It demands the entire recalled debt, not the instalments that were missed. Clearing the arrear is worth doing and does not by itself answer the notice.
A dematerialised account that holds your securities electronically at a depository.
Your share locker. The broker is only the key, not the locker.
A finance company specifically authorised by the Reserve Bank to accept public deposits, subject to rating and tenure conditions.
Most non-banking financial companies may not take public deposits at all; the deposit-taking category is a separately authorised, and shrinking, subset. Regulated, but not a bank and not insured — the extra rate is credit risk on one company with no safety net behind it.
An exchange-level order attribute that shows only part of an order’s size in the book, releasing the next slice automatically as each one fills.
Why a level keeps refilling with the same quantity. Each refreshed slice joins the back of the queue, so concealment is paid for in priority.
A broker offering execution with little or no research or advisory, typically at zero delivery brokerage and a low flat charge per intraday or F&O order.
A ₹20 saving per order is irrelevant if the app freezes on the day the NIFTY moves 3%. DP charges, annual maintenance and square-off penalties are where a zero-brokerage broker actually earns.
Sustained selling into strength, typically at a top, with heavy volume and choppy sideways price.
The stock feels exciting while large holders hand their shares to newcomers.
Cash or liquid funds held back specifically to be deployed into a decline.
Only genuine when the deployment levels are written down beforehand. Vague intent to buy the fall reliably turns into buying after the recovery is obvious.
The single price at which the maximum quantity can trade in a call auction.
Everyone who matches fills there, whatever they bid. That uniformity is the protection the auction provides.
Systematically buying characteristics — momentum, value, quality — rather than picking stocks.
Mechanical by design. Overriding the rule is where the edge disappears.
Someone who has to sell at whatever price is available, because of a margin call, a bill falling due, or an emergency with no cash behind it.
The market pays badly for urgency. Almost every plan that fails does so at the moment its owner stopped being able to choose the date of the sale.
A large order automatically split into smaller slices.
For size in mid-liquidity names, so you consume the book gradually rather than all at once.
The growth rate a current market price mathematically assumes.
Turns “is this worth ₹1,840?” into “can it grow 19% for a decade?” — a question you can research.
A fund that mechanically holds every constituent of an index in its weightings.
You will never beat the index. You will also never underperform it by much, and you pay almost nothing.
A lender selling pledged shares in the open market after a margin call is not met.
The moment a promoter's personal finances become your share price problem.
A contract giving the right, but not the obligation, to buy (call) or sell (put) at a set price.
Buyers risk only the premium. Sellers take limited gain for potentially very large loss.
A condition where an oscillator such as RSI reads above a high threshold, typically 70.
The most misunderstood word in trading. In a strong trend RSI can stay above 70 for months.
Systematically overestimating the reliability of your own judgement.
Bull markets manufacture it, and position sizes grow to match the feeling rather than the evidence.
Shares on which only part of the issue price has been paid, the balance being payable on later calls; they trade as a separate listed line under their own symbol and ISIN until fully paid.
The price looks like a discount to the ordinary share and is not one — the gap is the money you still owe. Once the calls are met the line converts into the fully paid share.
Marking securities as collateral, typically for margin.
Pledged shares are encumbered, which complicates recovery if a broker fails.
Ordering a universe by a measure and holding the top slice mechanically.
You are not judging the business — only observing that the market is treating it well.
The provision barring a life policy from being called in question after three years from the policy, the commencement of risk, a revival or a rider — whichever is later.
After three years the argument is over on any ground, including fraud. The detail that catches families is the starting point: a lapse and revival restarts the clock.
A periodically published figure for the total shares sold short in a security, standard in the United States and not published in that form here.
There is no Indian days-to-cover statistic to look up. A crowded short position shows up in derivatives open interest instead.
Systematic Investment Plan — a fixed amount invested automatically at fixed intervals.
Its real benefit is behavioural: the money goes in before you can talk yourself out of it.
A call auction the exchange runs to discover the first price of a security that has no previous close, such as a fresh listing or a company listing under a scheme.
A price band has to be drawn around something. On a first day there is no previous close, so orders are collected over a window and matched at one equilibrium price.
A SIP that increases automatically each year, usually with income.
One checkbox at setup that can roughly double a twenty-year corpus. Almost nobody enables it.
A fixed deposit linked to a savings account that automatically converts back to cash when the balance runs short.
Earns deposit interest while behaving like a savings account. The natural home for an emergency fund.
Possession of a secured asset taken as a legal act — a notice affixed and published — rather than by physically occupying it.
The paper on the door. Actual physical possession of an occupied home usually needs a separate application to a magistrate, which is a further stage with its own timetable.
The smallest increment by which a security's price may move, typically 5 paise for most Indian equities.
It sets a floor on how tight a bid-ask spread can ever be. That floor bites hardest in low-priced stocks, where one tick is a meaningful percentage.
Additional borrowing offered on an existing secured loan, typically at or near the same rate, where the security supports it.
The cheapest large borrowing a household can get, which is exactly the danger. Money borrowed for twenty years to fund something consumed in one is not cheap because the rate is low.
A stop-loss that moves up as price rises, typically a set ATR multiple below the highest close.
Lets winners run, and always gives back a slice at the top. That giving-back is the price of the runners.
How long moves in an instrument typically continue.
Some names trend for weeks and some reverse in days — reliably, over years.
A market making sustained directional progress, typically with ADX above about 25.
Where trend systems earn their money and mean-reversion systems get run over.
How much an instrument typically moves over a period.
It should set your position size. Equal rupees in a calm and a volatile stock is not equal risk.
A sanctioned borrowing ceiling for day-to-day operations — cash credit, overdraft or a demand loan — typically reviewable periodically and repayable on demand.
A permission to borrow rather than a promise of funding, and it never appears on a repayment calendar because it has no maturity. It is worth least on the day it is needed most.
An exchange framework that applies tighter trading conditions to a security on the basis of its price and volume behaviour, in a short-term and a long-term form.
It reacts to how the share has traded, not to anything the company did. The bite is 100% upfront margin, which usually reaches you as a rejected order or a margin call before you have read the circular.
A large negotiated trade executed in a dedicated window within a narrow price band, disclosed the same day.
Typically one decision by one large party — a private equity exit, a promoter tranche, a fund taking a position.
A moving average with bands placed a set number of standard deviations above and below.
They define what is statistically normal for this stock — not what is expensive.
An entry order with a stop-loss and target attached.
Enforces intraday discipline at the cost of flexibility; squared off automatically.
The level of sales at which contribution exactly covers fixed costs and profit is nil.
The point past which a high-fixed-cost business becomes dramatically profitable, and below which it bleeds.
A trailing stop placed a multiple of ATR below the highest high since entry.
The standard method, because it widens automatically as the stock gets wilder and tightens as it settles.
A bank owned by its members and registered under co-operative law, supervised by the banking regulator alongside a co-operative registrar.
Deposit insurance is identical to any other bank. The resolution timetable historically is not — withdrawal caps at failed co-operative banks have lasted years rather than weeks.
The annualised gap between the futures price and spot, calculated as ((futures − spot) ÷ spot) × (365 ÷ days to expiry).
Roughly in line with short-term interest rates in an ordinary market. A negative number is not automatically bearish: check for a dividend before expiry first, because the futures holder does not receive it and the price discounts it.
A quote expressing how much of one currency it takes to buy another — USDINR being rupees per dollar, so a rising chart means a weaker rupee.
A ratio, not a price. Every move belongs to one of the two legs, and a stronger dollar worldwide is a different event from a weaker rupee specifically.
Repaying debts in order of interest rate, highest first.
Mathematically the cheapest way out of debt. Clear the 42% card before the 9% home loan, every time.
A mutual fund version with no distributor commission built into the expense ratio.
Same fund, same manager, same portfolio — typically 0.5–1% cheaper every single year.
In a pairs trade, the risk that the spread keeps widening because the relationship between the two legs has genuinely changed.
The failure mode that erases many winners: you lose on both legs at once, and the short leg's loss is theoretically unbounded.
A reversal pattern where price fails twice at the same level, confirmed only when the low between the two peaks breaks.
Calling it while price is still approaching an old high is one of the more reliable ways to short a strong uptrend. Until the intervening low goes, this is a test of resistance.
Continuous trading before and after the main session, available in some foreign markets and not in Indian cash equities.
Overnight news is not partly traded through before the bell here. It arrives whole, into one call auction and the first minutes of the session.
A contract to buy or sell an asset at a set price on a specified future date.
Obligation, not choice. Losses are theoretically unlimited.
A schedule, set in advance, for reducing the equity share of a portfolio as a goal date approaches.
It lowers the expected amount and narrows the range of amounts. Written down years ahead it is a rule; decided in the moment it is a market call.
Using contracts to reduce exposure to a price or rate.
Not automatically prudence — hedges cost money and expire. Watch the extremes.
A formula for the position size that maximises long-run growth given a known edge.
Mathematically correct and far too aggressive in practice, because you never know your edge that precisely.
Land held by a developer for future projects.
Not automatically an asset. Land in the wrong location is dead capital carried at cost.
A deadline created by whoever is selling, rather than by any mechanism of the market — a closing launch price, an offer valid until month-end, a rate approved only today.
The test is one sentence: what specifically is worse for me if I decide in six weeks? If the answer is only a different price on a product that remains available, there is no deadline.
Collateral required to hold a leveraged position, adjusted daily against market movements.
A margin call is the broker asking for more collateral, immediately.
Weighting index constituents by their free-float market capitalisation.
An unlabelled momentum strategy — it automatically holds more of whatever has risen.
The strike-by-strike table of open interest, change in open interest, volume and implied volatility for an underlying's options, published live and free by the NSE.
The strike with the largest call open interest often acts as resistance and the largest put strike as support, because writers hedging those positions generate real buying and selling. One source of confluence, not a forecast.
The property that the order of returns, not just their values, determines the outcome.
Multiplication does not care about order. Drawdown limits, margin calls and your own nerve do — which is why sequence decides whether you were still there for the good part.
Executives appointed on merit rather than through ownership or family.
Listen to who answers operational questions on the concall. That tells you more than the org chart does.
Borrowing by promoters against their own shareholding in the company.
A falling price triggers margin calls, forcing lenders to dump shares — which drives price lower still.
An agency’s view on the likely direction of a rating over the medium term.
Often more informative than the letters. A negative outlook typically precedes a downgrade by months.
Restoring a portfolio to target weights on a schedule.
Sells strength and buys weakness automatically, without requiring you to predict anything.
The version of a mutual fund scheme whose expense ratio includes a commission paid to the distributor who sold it.
Same scheme, same manager, same portfolio as the direct plan, typically 0.5–1% dearer every year. The extra is charged whether or not any advice is ever given.
SEBI's online complaints redress system, where a grievance against a market intermediary is logged, tracked and escalated within a mandated response period.
The third stage of the escalation path, after the broker and the exchange, and free like all of them. It runs on written complaints with reference numbers, which is why a phone call is worth nothing here.
A screen-based, order-driven and anonymous market for borrowing shares against a fee, with the clearing corporation standing between lender and borrower.
The only route that carries a short past an expiry date without a paid roll, with tenures running to about a year. The catch is availability: in exactly the names a bearish thesis tends to be about, there may be no lender at any price, and the lender can recall early.
The requirement that brokers keep client money and securities separate from their own.
Failures have historically involved breaching exactly this. It is why idle cash is the exposed asset.
The core initial margin on a derivatives position, computed as the worst single-day loss across a grid of simulated price and volatility scenarios.
It rises when volatility rises, which is precisely the day the position is losing money. The margin call and the loss are correlated by design, and that correlation is what turns a bad session into a forced exit.
A statistical measure of how widely a series is dispersed around its own average; Bollinger Bands sit two of them either side of a 20-day mean.
It is recomputed every session, which is why the bands widen when a stock turns volatile and contract when it goes quiet. Touching a band means statistically unusual, never expensive.
A stock whose valuation rests mainly on a narrative rather than on current financials.
Not automatically a bad investment. It is a specific bet that the story survives long enough to become numbers.
A written specification of trigger, stop, size, invalidation and event risk before entry.
Written at the weekend so it can be executed mechanically during the week.
An oscillator showing where the close sits within the recent trading range, scaled inversely.
Mathematically almost identical to Stochastic %K. If you already have one on the chart, the other adds nothing.