Learning hub

Stock market glossary

Every trading and investing term you’ll meet — explained in plain English, with no jargon. 53 definitions and counting.

A

Bear market: A sustained fall in prices, often defined as a 20%+ drop from recent highs, driven by pessimism.
Bid: The highest price a buyer is willing to pay right now.
Blue chip: A large, well-established, financially sound company considered relatively stable.
Bonus share: Extra shares given free to existing shareholders in proportion to their holding.
Breakout: When price moves decisively through a support or resistance level, often on higher volume.
Bull market: A sustained rise in prices and optimism across the market.

Candlestick: A chart element showing the open, high, low and close of a period in one shape.
Capital gain: The profit made when you sell an asset for more than you paid.
Circuit breaker: An exchange rule that halts or limits trading after a large price move to curb panic.
Currency conversion: Changing money from one currency to another at an exchange rate. On StockYatra your virtual coins are converted at a simulated rate when you trade a market priced in ₹ or $ — practice only, no real currency changes hands.

Demat account: An account that holds your shares electronically, like a bank account for stocks.
Diversification: Spreading investments across many assets or sectors to reduce risk.
Dividend: A share of a company’s profits paid to shareholders, usually in cash.
Dividend yield: Annual dividend divided by share price, expressed as a percentage.

EPS: Earnings per share — a company’s profit divided by its number of shares.
ETF: Exchange-traded fund — a basket of assets that trades like a single stock.
Ex-dividend date: Buy before this date to be eligible for the upcoming dividend.
Exchange rate: The price of one currency in another, e.g. how many Nepali rupees buy one US dollar. It moves every day and affects the value of foreign holdings.

Forex: Short for foreign exchange — the global market for trading currencies. In StockYatra, “Forex” is also the name of our US-stocks practice market, priced in dollars.
Fundamental analysis: Valuing a company by studying its business, earnings, debt and growth.

Index: A basket of stocks used to measure a whole market in one number, e.g. the NEPSE Index, the Nifty 50 or the S&P 500.
IPO: Initial Public Offering — a company’s first sale of shares to the public.

Leverage: Using borrowed money (margin) to control a larger position; it magnifies gains and losses.
Limit order: An order that executes only at your chosen price or better.
Liquidity: How easily an asset can be bought or sold without moving its price much.
Long position: Buying a stock expecting its price to rise.

MACD: Moving Average Convergence Divergence — an indicator of momentum and trend shifts.
Margin: The deposit required to open a leveraged position.
Margin call: A demand to add funds when losses erode your margin below a required level.
Market cap: A company’s total value: share price times number of shares outstanding.
Market hours: The times an exchange is open for trading. NEPSE, NSE and US exchanges each keep their own hours in their local time zone, so the three markets open at different times of your day.
Market order: An order that executes immediately at the best available price.
Moving average: A line that smooths price over a period to reveal the trend.

NASDAQ: A US stock exchange known for technology companies such as Apple, Microsoft and Nvidia; also the name of its indices. Prices are in US dollars ($).
NEPSE: Nepal Stock Exchange — Nepal’s only stock exchange, in Kathmandu, and the name of its main index. Prices are in Nepali rupees (Rs.).
NSE: National Stock Exchange of India, in Mumbai — India’s largest exchange by trading volume and home of the Nifty 50 index. Prices are in Indian rupees (₹).
NYSE: New York Stock Exchange — the world’s largest stock exchange by the total value of its listed companies. Prices are in US dollars ($).

P/E ratio: Price-to-earnings — share price divided by earnings per share; a basic valuation measure.
Paper trading: Practising trades with virtual money and real prices — zero financial risk.
Portfolio: The full collection of investments a person or fund holds.

Resistance: A price ceiling where sellers repeatedly appear and cap a rise.
Risk/reward ratio: The reward you aim for versus the risk you take on a trade, e.g. 1:2.
RSI: Relative Strength Index — a 0–100 momentum gauge; above 70 overbought, below 30 oversold.

Short position: Selling a borrowed stock expecting its price to fall, to buy it back cheaper.
Slippage: The difference between the expected price of a trade and the price it actually fills at.
Stop-loss: An order that exits a trade automatically to cap your loss.
Support: A price floor where buyers repeatedly step in and stop a fall.
Swing trading: Holding trades for days to weeks to capture a larger price swing.

Technical analysis: Studying price, volume and patterns on charts to time entries and exits.
Trailing stop: A stop-loss that follows price as a trade moves in your favour to lock in profit.

Volatility: How much and how quickly a price moves; higher volatility means bigger swings.
Volume: The number of shares traded in a period; shows conviction behind a move.

The fastest way to remember these terms is to use them. Practise free on StockYatra with 10,000 virtual coins.