Sorted by duration

Every trading word answers one question first: how long does it keep money out of reach? (Nigeria)

Most glossaries sort words by where they appear on a screen. This one sorts them by time, the property that matters to anyone who intends to take money out again. Some words lock nothing. One locks money until you close. One nibbles each night. One takes it for good.

Four durations, and every term below sits in one of them: never — the word measures or pictures something and moves no money at all; until you close — the word describes something reserved while a position lives; one night at a time — the word describes a small charge for carrying a position past the day's end; permanently — the word describes money that has finished leaving. Beginners get into trouble by reading a second-group word as if it belonged to the fourth: money looks lost when it is only parked.

Duration: never — the words that only measure or picture

The largest group, and the one beginners memorise first: not one of these words moves a figure by itself. They are the vocabulary of describing, and can be argued about all day without an account noticing.

A pip is a step in a price — EUR/USD moving from 1.1000 to 1.1001 — worth roughly 10 cents at the smallest sizes. It is a distance, not an amount: «twenty pips» says nothing about money until a size is attached. A lot is that size: the unit trades are counted in, one lot of EUR/USD being 100,000 euros, with 0.01 as the usual smallest step. Only a distance times a size makes a currency figure.

Instrument names what is being traded, long and short name which direction a position faces, and market names something that belongs to no platform at all. Chart, candle and timeframe are pictures of where a price has already been (how to read one). Switch a timeframe, redraw a chart, change an instrument on the watchlist — nothing on the account moves until an order is actually sent.

The rest of this group is useful furniture. A watchlist is the short list of instruments a platform keeps in front of you; a quote is the pair of prices shown for one of them; an order is the instruction that has not happened yet, as distinct from the position that exists once it has. Order type names its flavour — at the price showing now, or waiting at a price that has not arrived. All of them can be typed and deleted all afternoon at no cost, which is why a beginner should spend an afternoon doing it.

One more belongs here despite feeling weightier. Leverage is chosen once with the account, not in an order window, and it is neither a loan nor a balance: it decides which sizes an account may open, and enlarges a result in either direction equally. By itself it locks nothing.

Duration: until you close — the words for money that is yours and parked

The group that causes the phone calls. Everything here is your own money, none of it has been spent, and all of it comes back the moment a position ends.

Margin is the reservation itself: opening a leveraged position sets part of the balance aside and keeps it there for as long as the position lives. It is not a fee, not a charge and not a loss. Free margin is the remainder — the untied part, and the figure a payout screen actually reads. When free margin and the balance agree, nothing is open. When they differ, the difference is parked.

Balance and equity disagree for the same reason, and only while something is open: balance is what the account has already settled, equity is what it would settle at if every position closed this second. A figure still moving cannot be handed over, so a profit that is showing is not yet a profit that can be asked for.

Which makes close the most underrated verb on the platform: the only word in this group a person controls, and it turns parked money into free money in one click. Closing part of a position frees part of the reservation. Anyone staring at a full-looking account that will not send anything is one click from the answer.

An independent guide: it holds no balance, reads no account and places no trades. Every figure named here lives in your own Exness account area and platform, and CFDs are complex instruments that may not be suitable for everyone.

Duration: one night at a time — the word for carrying a position

Swap is the charge for holding a position past the daily rollover, and the platform states it on the ticket before the trade is confirmed rather than revealing it afterwards. Individually it is small. Its interest is structural: the only cost here that is a function of time rather than a decision, so a position left open for weeks quietly reduces the figure you would eventually ask back. On a swap-free account the overnight interest is not applied to eligible instruments, while other costs still are. What else an account type fixes.

Duration: permanently — the two words that do not give anything back

Short group, heavy consequences. Spread is the gap between the buying price and the selling price of an instrument at one moment, applied as a position opens — which is why a brand-new trade usually shows a small negative figure immediately and nothing is wrong. A closed loss is the other: the distance between entry and exit, multiplied by the size that was typed, settled at the instant of closing and never restored by anything except a different trade later.

Underneath both sits a floor. Negative Balance Protection limits losses to the money deposited, so an account does not travel past zero into a debt. The whole of what is in it can still go, which is why the size typed into a ticket is the real subject of risk basics.

The word with no duration and no field

Risk per trade appears on no panel, in no column and in no order window. No platform can compute it, because it is made of a size you typed and a distance you chose, and it exists only in a notebook. It moves nothing by itself and it governs how much every word above is allowed to move (where it enters a ticket).

A closing test for any word met later: ask what undoes it. Nothing to undo means it measures; closing undoes it means it parks; only tomorrow undoes it means it is nightly; nothing undoes it means it is permanent. No vocabulary list has to be memorised — though none of it says where a price goes next.

Questions about which figure to trust

Which group does a word belong to if I cannot tell?

Ask what undoes it. If nothing has to be undone, it measures. If closing undoes it, it parks. If only tomorrow undoes it, it is nightly. If nothing undoes it, it is permanent.

Can a pip cost anything on its own?

Not by itself. It is a distance; the size typed is what turns that distance into an amount.

Is switching a timeframe or adding an instrument a decision with a cost?

No. Charts, candles, timeframes and watchlists picture and organise. Nothing on the account moves until an order is sent.

How small can a lot get?

0.01 is the usual smallest step, against one lot of EUR/USD being 100,000 euros. Below that the account type changes the unit rather than the step.

My trade is showing a profit. Which duration is that?

«Until you close» — it is still moving, so it is not a figure that can be handed over yet.

Why did a small amount disappear overnight?

Swap: the position was carried past the daily rollover. It was stated on the ticket before the trade was confirmed.

Does the spread appear as its own line?

It is built into the two prices rather than billed separately, which is why a fresh position often starts slightly negative.

A full-looking account will not send anything. Which duration explains it?

The second one. Something is still open, so part of the money is parked, and closing is the only word that unparks it.

Where these words are used in earnest

The exit check

The two conditions money leaving an account has to meet.

Run it

Size and distance

Turn a pip into an amount before a ticket opens.

Run the numbers

Still unsure of a term?

Short answers to what beginners ask first.

Read the FAQ

Durations make sense the moment you watch one.

A demo gives virtual money and live prices, free and with no time limit. Open one small position, watch free margin drop, close it and watch it come back — the whole second group in about a minute. This site is an independent guide, not a broker: it opens no accounts and holds no money.

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