EUR/USD

GBP/USD

USD/JPY

AUD/USD

USD/CHF

USD/CAD

NZD/USD

EUR/GBP

Gold

S&P 500

Gold Fut

Crude Oil

AAPL

MSFT

NVDA

TSLA

AMZN

BTC

ETH

EUR/USD

GBP/USD

USD/JPY

AUD/USD

USD/CHF

USD/CAD

NZD/USD

EUR/GBP

Gold

S&P 500

Gold Fut

Crude Oil

AAPL

MSFT

NVDA

TSLA

AMZN

BTC

ETH

PecuDeskbeta 0.9.0

EUR/USD

GBP/USD

USD/JPY

AUD/USD

USD/CHF

USD/CAD

NZD/USD

EUR/GBP

Gold

S&P 500

Gold Fut

Crude Oil

AAPL

MSFT

NVDA

TSLA

AMZN

BTC

ETH

EUR/USD

GBP/USD

USD/JPY

AUD/USD

USD/CHF

USD/CAD

NZD/USD

EUR/GBP

Gold

S&P 500

Gold Fut

Crude Oil

AAPL

MSFT

NVDA

TSLA

AMZN

BTC

ETH

PecuDeskbeta 0.9.0

EUR/USD

GBP/USD

USD/JPY

AUD/USD

USD/CHF

USD/CAD

NZD/USD

EUR/GBP

Gold

S&P 500

Gold Fut

Crude Oil

AAPL

MSFT

NVDA

TSLA

AMZN

BTC

ETH

EUR/USD

GBP/USD

USD/JPY

AUD/USD

USD/CHF

USD/CAD

NZD/USD

EUR/GBP

Gold

S&P 500

Gold Fut

Crude Oil

AAPL

MSFT

NVDA

TSLA

AMZN

BTC

ETH

PecuDeskbeta 0.9.0

Knowledge Library

Definitions for the terms used across the hub and in the platform's own output. Each one links to the lesson section that teaches it, for the reader who wants the context rather than the one-line answer.

68 terms · 4 groups · no account required

68 terms

Market mechanics

How a price is made, what it costs to participate, and what an order does.

Hedgers: Businesses with real exposure. An airline buying fuel or an exporter selling foreign revenue. They transact because their operations require it, not because they hold a view on direction.; Taught inHow financial markets work
Speculators: Participants taking directional risk for profit. Hedge funds, proprietary desks, retail traders. They set most of the short-term flow.; Taught inHow financial markets work
Market makers: Firms quoting both a buy and a sell price continuously. They profit from the difference between the two, not from direction, and they withdraw when uncertainty rises.; Taught inHow financial markets work
Passive flow: Index and pension money transacting on a schedule to match a benchmark. Large, price-insensitive, and driven by rules rather than by any view on value.; Taught inHow financial markets work
Long: A position that gains when price rises. Opened by buying, closed by selling.; Taught inLong and short positions
Short: A position that gains when price falls. Opened by selling, closed by buying.; Taught inLong and short positions
Covering: Buying back to close a short. The word matters because it is a buy, and enough of them at once drives price up.; Taught inLong and short positions
Borrow fee: A charge for borrowing the shares, quoted as an annual rate and accruing daily. On an ordinary name it is negligible. On a scarce one it can exceed any plausible gain from the position.; Taught inLong and short positions
Recall: The lender can demand the shares back. The position closes whether or not the timing suits, and at whatever the price is that day.; Taught inLong and short positions
Bid: The price at which you can sell. The higher of the two prices a market maker will pay.; Taught inBid, ask, spread and liquidity
Ask: The price at which you can buy. Always above the bid.; Taught inBid, ask, spread and liquidity
Spread: The difference between the two. The market maker's compensation for quoting continuously.; Taught inBid, ask, spread and liquidity
Depth: How much size rests at and near those prices. A tight spread on almost no size is not liquidity.; Taught inBid, ask, spread and liquidity
Liquidity: Spread and depth together: how much can transact at or near the current price without moving it.; Taught inBid, ask, spread and liquidity
Market order: Fills immediately at the best available price. Certain to fill, uncertain on price.; Taught inOrders and execution
Limit order: Fills at your specified price or better. Certain on price, uncertain on fill. Used to buy below or sell above the current market.; Taught inOrders and execution
Stop entry: Becomes a market order once price trades through a specified level. Used to enter on a break rather than into one.; Taught inOrders and execution
Stop-loss: Closes an open position once price trades through a specified level. Caps the loss on that position under normal conditions.; Taught inOrders and execution
Trailing stop: A stop that follows price by a fixed distance as the position moves in favour, and stays put when it moves against. Automates giving back a fixed amount of an advance.; Taught inOrders and execution
One cancels the other: A target and a stop submitted as a pair, where filling one removes the other. Prevents the position being closed twice or the stop resting after the target hits.; Taught inOrders and execution
Margin: The collateral a broker holds against an open position. A requirement, expressed as a percentage of position value.; Taught inLeverage and margin
Leverage: The ratio of position size to the capital behind it. A consequence of how large a position you opened, not a setting you switch on.; Taught inLeverage and margin
Notional: The full value of what the position controls, as opposed to the margin posted against it. The number that determines the profit and loss.; Taught inLeverage and margin
Effective leverage: Total notional across all open positions divided by account equity. The only leverage figure that describes actual risk.; Taught inLeverage and margin

Instruments

The vocabulary each market carries, and the terms that do not travel between them.

Base currency: The first currency in the pair. In EUR/USD it is the euro. The quoted number is how much of the quote currency one unit of the base is worth.; Taught inForex
Quote currency: The second currency, and the one your profit or loss is denominated in before conversion back to the account currency.; Taught inForex
Pip: The standard increment of movement. On most pairs it is the fourth decimal place, 0.0001. On yen-quoted pairs it is the second, 0.01. This exception is not cosmetic and gets its own section below.; Taught inForex
Lot: The unit of position size. A standard lot is 100,000 units of the base currency, a mini lot 10,000, a micro lot 1,000.; Taught inForex
Interest rate differentials: Capital moves toward higher yields. The gap between two countries' policy rates, and the expected path of that gap, is the dominant medium-term driver.; Taught inForex
Cash index: The published measurement itself, calculated only while the underlying market is open. Not directly tradable.; Taught inIndices and commodities
Index future: An exchange-traded contract on the index, with an expiry and a roll. Trades nearly around the clock, including while the cash market is shut.; Taught inIndices and commodities
Opening gap: Because derivatives keep trading overnight and the cash market does not, the cash index frequently opens at a level the derivative reached hours earlier. That gap is repricing that already happened, not a new move.; Taught inIndices and commodities
Real rates: Holding gold earns nothing. When inflation-adjusted yields on government debt rise, the cost of holding a non-yielding asset rises with them.; Taught inIndices and commodities
Market capitalisation: Share price multiplied by shares outstanding. The rough size of the company, and the strongest single predictor of how the instrument behaves.; Taught inStocks
Float: The shares actually available to trade, which is lower than shares outstanding once insider and restricted holdings are excluded. A low float concentrates every buy and sell into a small pool, which is why some names move violently on ordinary volume.; Taught inStocks
Volume: The number of shares traded, consolidated and published. Equities and exchange-traded futures both have a complete volume figure because every trade clears through an exchange. Forex and crypto do not, because neither settles through a single venue.; Taught inStocks
Stock split: The share count changes and the price changes to match. Nothing about the company changed. Historical charts are adjusted, so a split creates a discontinuity in unadjusted data and none in adjusted data.; Taught inStocks
Dividend: Cash paid to holders. The share price drops by roughly the dividend on the ex-dividend date, which is a mechanical adjustment rather than a sell-off.; Taught inStocks
Index inclusion: Joining or leaving a major index forces every fund tracking it to buy or sell, producing flow unrelated to the business.; Taught inStocks
Call: The right to buy the underlying at the strike, until expiry. Gains as the underlying rises.; Taught inOptions
Put: The right to sell the underlying at the strike, until expiry. Gains as the underlying falls.; Taught inOptions
Strike: The price at which the right can be exercised. Fixed when the contract is opened.; Taught inOptions
Expiry: The date the right ends. After it, an option that is not in the money is worth nothing.; Taught inOptions
Premium: What the buyer pays. The buyer's maximum loss, and the seller's maximum gain.; Taught inOptions
Moneyness: Where the strike sits against the underlying. In the money has value on exercise today; at the money sits near the current price; out of the money has none yet.; Taught inOptions
Delta: How much the premium moves per unit of movement in the underlying. Low for far out-of-the-money options, which is why a small favourable move can leave the premium barely changed.; Taught inOptions
Theta: How much value the option loses per day with everything else held still. Works against buyers and for sellers, and accelerates toward expiry.; Taught inOptions
Vega: How much the premium moves when expected volatility changes. This is the input that makes a directionally correct position lose money.; Taught inOptions
Gamma: How fast delta itself shifts as the underlying moves. It is why an option's behaviour near the strike close to expiry is unstable, and why dealer gamma levels are watched as reference points.; Taught inOptions
Spot: Buying the asset itself. No expiry, no funding, no liquidation level. The position is the holding, and it can be moved off the venue.; Taught inCrypto
Perpetual: A futures-style contract with no expiry and no roll. The dominant instrument for directional exposure, and the one carrying funding and a liquidation price.; Taught inCrypto
Dated future: A contract with a fixed expiry, as in any other futures market. Thinner than the perpetual on most venues.; Taught inCrypto

Analysis

Structure, market condition, and what confirms or overturns a read.

Swing high: A peak with lower highs on both sides. The point where buying stopped and selling took over.; Taught inWhat market structure means
Swing low: A trough with higher lows on both sides. The point where selling stopped and buying took over.; Taught inWhat market structure means
Market structure: The sequence those swings form when read in order.; Taught inWhat market structure means Reading the Desk Note
Accumulation: A quiet band after a decline, where positions are built without moving price far. Ranges rather than trends.; Taught inTrends, ranges and transitions
Markup: Directional progress out of that band. The trending condition.; Taught inTrends, ranges and transitions
Distribution: A band after an advance, where positions are unwound into continued demand. Ranges again, at the other end.; Taught inTrends, ranges and transitions
Markdown: Directional progress downward out of that band.; Taught inTrends, ranges and transitions
Confirmation: The observable event that has to occur before the read is acted on. A close beyond a level, a structure break in the expected direction, a rejection at a zone.; Taught inConfirmation and invalidation
Invalidation: The price at which the read is wrong. Not the point of maximum tolerable loss, which is a separate and smaller number.; Taught inConfirmation and invalidation Reading the Desk Note
Time invalidation: The point at which a read has had long enough to work and has not. A thesis that required an immediate reaction and got a week of drift has been answered, even without the price level being reached.; Taught inConfirmation and invalidation

Reading the output

The words PecuDesk uses in a Desk Note, and what each states.

Band: The price range the market is trading between.; Taught inReading the Desk Note
Break: Price closing past a level, above resistance or below support.; Taught inReading the Desk Note
Expansion: A large, decisive candle. Real participation rather than drift.; Taught inReading the Desk Note
Positioning: Where large institutional traders are net long or short.; Taught inReading the Desk Note
Consolidation: Price moving sideways in a tight range.; Taught inReading the Desk Note
Targets or opens: The next level a move points toward once a level breaks.; Taught inReading the Desk Note

EUR/USD

GBP/USD

USD/JPY

AUD/USD

USD/CHF

USD/CAD

NZD/USD

EUR/GBP

Gold

S&P 500

Gold Fut

Crude Oil

AAPL

MSFT

NVDA

TSLA

AMZN

BTC

ETH

EUR/USD

GBP/USD

USD/JPY

AUD/USD

USD/CHF

USD/CAD

NZD/USD

EUR/GBP

Gold

S&P 500

Gold Fut

Crude Oil

AAPL

MSFT

NVDA

TSLA

AMZN

BTC

ETH

PecuDeskbeta 0.9.0

EUR/USD

GBP/USD

USD/JPY

AUD/USD

USD/CHF

USD/CAD

NZD/USD

EUR/GBP

Gold

S&P 500

Gold Fut

Crude Oil

AAPL

MSFT

NVDA

TSLA

AMZN

BTC

ETH

EUR/USD

GBP/USD

USD/JPY

AUD/USD

USD/CHF

USD/CAD

NZD/USD

EUR/GBP

Gold

S&P 500

Gold Fut

Crude Oil

AAPL

MSFT

NVDA

TSLA

AMZN

BTC

ETH

PecuDeskbeta 0.9.0

Knowledge Library

68 terms · 4 groups · no account required

68 terms

Market mechanics

How a price is made, what it costs to participate, and what an order does.

Hedgers: Businesses with real exposure. An airline buying fuel or an exporter selling foreign revenue. They transact because their operations require it, not because they hold a view on direction.; Taught inHow financial markets work
Speculators: Participants taking directional risk for profit. Hedge funds, proprietary desks, retail traders. They set most of the short-term flow.; Taught inHow financial markets work
Market makers: Firms quoting both a buy and a sell price continuously. They profit from the difference between the two, not from direction, and they withdraw when uncertainty rises.; Taught inHow financial markets work
Passive flow: Index and pension money transacting on a schedule to match a benchmark. Large, price-insensitive, and driven by rules rather than by any view on value.; Taught inHow financial markets work
Long: A position that gains when price rises. Opened by buying, closed by selling.; Taught inLong and short positions
Short: A position that gains when price falls. Opened by selling, closed by buying.; Taught inLong and short positions
Covering: Buying back to close a short. The word matters because it is a buy, and enough of them at once drives price up.; Taught inLong and short positions
Borrow fee: A charge for borrowing the shares, quoted as an annual rate and accruing daily. On an ordinary name it is negligible. On a scarce one it can exceed any plausible gain from the position.; Taught inLong and short positions
Recall: The lender can demand the shares back. The position closes whether or not the timing suits, and at whatever the price is that day.; Taught inLong and short positions
Bid: The price at which you can sell. The higher of the two prices a market maker will pay.; Taught inBid, ask, spread and liquidity
Ask: The price at which you can buy. Always above the bid.; Taught inBid, ask, spread and liquidity
Spread: The difference between the two. The market maker's compensation for quoting continuously.; Taught inBid, ask, spread and liquidity
Depth: How much size rests at and near those prices. A tight spread on almost no size is not liquidity.; Taught inBid, ask, spread and liquidity
Liquidity: Spread and depth together: how much can transact at or near the current price without moving it.; Taught inBid, ask, spread and liquidity
Market order: Fills immediately at the best available price. Certain to fill, uncertain on price.; Taught inOrders and execution
Limit order: Fills at your specified price or better. Certain on price, uncertain on fill. Used to buy below or sell above the current market.; Taught inOrders and execution
Stop entry: Becomes a market order once price trades through a specified level. Used to enter on a break rather than into one.; Taught inOrders and execution
Stop-loss: Closes an open position once price trades through a specified level. Caps the loss on that position under normal conditions.; Taught inOrders and execution
Trailing stop: A stop that follows price by a fixed distance as the position moves in favour, and stays put when it moves against. Automates giving back a fixed amount of an advance.; Taught inOrders and execution
One cancels the other: A target and a stop submitted as a pair, where filling one removes the other. Prevents the position being closed twice or the stop resting after the target hits.; Taught inOrders and execution
Margin: The collateral a broker holds against an open position. A requirement, expressed as a percentage of position value.; Taught inLeverage and margin
Leverage: The ratio of position size to the capital behind it. A consequence of how large a position you opened, not a setting you switch on.; Taught inLeverage and margin
Notional: The full value of what the position controls, as opposed to the margin posted against it. The number that determines the profit and loss.; Taught inLeverage and margin
Effective leverage: Total notional across all open positions divided by account equity. The only leverage figure that describes actual risk.; Taught inLeverage and margin

Instruments

The vocabulary each market carries, and the terms that do not travel between them.

Base currency: The first currency in the pair. In EUR/USD it is the euro. The quoted number is how much of the quote currency one unit of the base is worth.; Taught inForex
Quote currency: The second currency, and the one your profit or loss is denominated in before conversion back to the account currency.; Taught inForex
Pip: The standard increment of movement. On most pairs it is the fourth decimal place, 0.0001. On yen-quoted pairs it is the second, 0.01. This exception is not cosmetic and gets its own section below.; Taught inForex
Lot: The unit of position size. A standard lot is 100,000 units of the base currency, a mini lot 10,000, a micro lot 1,000.; Taught inForex
Interest rate differentials: Capital moves toward higher yields. The gap between two countries' policy rates, and the expected path of that gap, is the dominant medium-term driver.; Taught inForex
Cash index: The published measurement itself, calculated only while the underlying market is open. Not directly tradable.; Taught inIndices and commodities
Index future: An exchange-traded contract on the index, with an expiry and a roll. Trades nearly around the clock, including while the cash market is shut.; Taught inIndices and commodities
Opening gap: Because derivatives keep trading overnight and the cash market does not, the cash index frequently opens at a level the derivative reached hours earlier. That gap is repricing that already happened, not a new move.; Taught inIndices and commodities
Real rates: Holding gold earns nothing. When inflation-adjusted yields on government debt rise, the cost of holding a non-yielding asset rises with them.; Taught inIndices and commodities
Market capitalisation: Share price multiplied by shares outstanding. The rough size of the company, and the strongest single predictor of how the instrument behaves.; Taught inStocks
Float: The shares actually available to trade, which is lower than shares outstanding once insider and restricted holdings are excluded. A low float concentrates every buy and sell into a small pool, which is why some names move violently on ordinary volume.; Taught inStocks
Volume: The number of shares traded, consolidated and published. Equities and exchange-traded futures both have a complete volume figure because every trade clears through an exchange. Forex and crypto do not, because neither settles through a single venue.; Taught inStocks
Stock split: The share count changes and the price changes to match. Nothing about the company changed. Historical charts are adjusted, so a split creates a discontinuity in unadjusted data and none in adjusted data.; Taught inStocks
Dividend: Cash paid to holders. The share price drops by roughly the dividend on the ex-dividend date, which is a mechanical adjustment rather than a sell-off.; Taught inStocks
Index inclusion: Joining or leaving a major index forces every fund tracking it to buy or sell, producing flow unrelated to the business.; Taught inStocks
Call: The right to buy the underlying at the strike, until expiry. Gains as the underlying rises.; Taught inOptions
Put: The right to sell the underlying at the strike, until expiry. Gains as the underlying falls.; Taught inOptions
Strike: The price at which the right can be exercised. Fixed when the contract is opened.; Taught inOptions
Expiry: The date the right ends. After it, an option that is not in the money is worth nothing.; Taught inOptions
Premium: What the buyer pays. The buyer's maximum loss, and the seller's maximum gain.; Taught inOptions
Moneyness: Where the strike sits against the underlying. In the money has value on exercise today; at the money sits near the current price; out of the money has none yet.; Taught inOptions
Delta: How much the premium moves per unit of movement in the underlying. Low for far out-of-the-money options, which is why a small favourable move can leave the premium barely changed.; Taught inOptions
Theta: How much value the option loses per day with everything else held still. Works against buyers and for sellers, and accelerates toward expiry.; Taught inOptions
Vega: How much the premium moves when expected volatility changes. This is the input that makes a directionally correct position lose money.; Taught inOptions
Gamma: How fast delta itself shifts as the underlying moves. It is why an option's behaviour near the strike close to expiry is unstable, and why dealer gamma levels are watched as reference points.; Taught inOptions
Spot: Buying the asset itself. No expiry, no funding, no liquidation level. The position is the holding, and it can be moved off the venue.; Taught inCrypto
Perpetual: A futures-style contract with no expiry and no roll. The dominant instrument for directional exposure, and the one carrying funding and a liquidation price.; Taught inCrypto
Dated future: A contract with a fixed expiry, as in any other futures market. Thinner than the perpetual on most venues.; Taught inCrypto

Analysis

Structure, market condition, and what confirms or overturns a read.

Swing high: A peak with lower highs on both sides. The point where buying stopped and selling took over.; Taught inWhat market structure means
Swing low: A trough with higher lows on both sides. The point where selling stopped and buying took over.; Taught inWhat market structure means
Market structure: The sequence those swings form when read in order.; Taught inWhat market structure means Reading the Desk Note
Accumulation: A quiet band after a decline, where positions are built without moving price far. Ranges rather than trends.; Taught inTrends, ranges and transitions
Markup: Directional progress out of that band. The trending condition.; Taught inTrends, ranges and transitions
Distribution: A band after an advance, where positions are unwound into continued demand. Ranges again, at the other end.; Taught inTrends, ranges and transitions
Markdown: Directional progress downward out of that band.; Taught inTrends, ranges and transitions
Confirmation: The observable event that has to occur before the read is acted on. A close beyond a level, a structure break in the expected direction, a rejection at a zone.; Taught inConfirmation and invalidation
Invalidation: The price at which the read is wrong. Not the point of maximum tolerable loss, which is a separate and smaller number.; Taught inConfirmation and invalidation Reading the Desk Note
Time invalidation: The point at which a read has had long enough to work and has not. A thesis that required an immediate reaction and got a week of drift has been answered, even without the price level being reached.; Taught inConfirmation and invalidation

Reading the output

The words PecuDesk uses in a Desk Note, and what each states.

Band: The price range the market is trading between.; Taught inReading the Desk Note
Break: Price closing past a level, above resistance or below support.; Taught inReading the Desk Note
Expansion: A large, decisive candle. Real participation rather than drift.; Taught inReading the Desk Note
Positioning: Where large institutional traders are net long or short.; Taught inReading the Desk Note
Consolidation: Price moving sideways in a tight range.; Taught inReading the Desk Note
Targets or opens: The next level a move points toward once a level breaks.; Taught inReading the Desk Note