Word list

Every trading word you need, in plain English

The home page introduced nine starter words. This page has all of them — and every other term used on this site, each explained in one or two plain sentences.

You do not need to memorize this page. Keep it open in another tab, or come back whenever a word stops you. Every definition here is short on purpose — no term is explained using another term you haven't met yet.

The basics

Trade: Buying or selling something in the hope that its price moves your way. One trade is one decision: you enter, and later you exit.
Market: All the buyers and sellers of one thing, taken together. When people say “the market moved”, they simply mean the price changed.
Price: What one unit of something costs right now. It changes constantly while the market is open.
Instrument (symbol): The thing you trade — a pair of currencies such as the euro and the US dollar, a metal like gold, and so on. Each instrument has a short code called a symbol, such as EUR/USD.
Broker: The company that connects you to the market and carries out your trades. Exness is a broker — here is what a broker actually does.
Order: Your instruction to the broker: buy or sell, which instrument, and how much. The trade begins when the order is carried out.
Position: A trade that is currently open. While a position is open, its profit or loss keeps changing as the price moves.
Chart: A picture of price over time. A chart shows where the price has been — it does not show where the price will go.
Candle: One block on a chart that shows how the price moved during a set slice of time: where it started, where it ended, and how far it swung in between.

Buying and selling

Buy price / sell price: Every instrument shows two prices at the same time. You buy at the slightly higher one and sell at the slightly lower one.
Spread: The gap between the buy price and the sell price. It is the main cost of a trade, and it is why a brand-new trade starts with a tiny minus.
Pip: A very small step in price. For EUR/USD, a move from 1.1000 to 1.1001 is one pip; in the smallest trade sizes, one pip is worth about 10 cents.
Lot: A standard unit of trade size. One lot of EUR/USD is 100,000 euros — but you can trade as little as 0.01 of a lot.
Volume: How big your trade is, measured in lots. Bigger volume means bigger swings — in both directions.
Long / short: Going long means buying because you expect the price to rise. Going short means selling first because you expect the price to fall.
Leverage: Borrowed trading power from the broker: it lets a small amount of money control a much larger trade. It makes losses grow exactly as fast as gains, so new traders are wise to keep it low.
Margin: The part of your money set aside as a safety deposit while a leveraged trade is open. It is released again when the trade closes.
Free margin: The money in your account that is not tied up in open trades. It is what you have left for new trades — and the cushion your open trades can lean on.
Stop out: The automatic closing of open trades when losses have eaten too much of your margin. It exists to stop losses from swallowing the whole account — and at Exness, Negative Balance Protection means clients never lose more than they've deposited.
Execution: The moment your order is actually carried out. The price can move a tiny bit between your click and the moment the trade opens.

Protecting your money

Stop-loss: An instruction attached to a trade: “if the loss reaches this level, close the trade automatically.” It puts a ceiling on what one trade can cost you — the safety rules page shows how to use it.
Take-profit: The opposite instruction: “if the profit reaches this level, close the trade and keep it.” It locks in a gain without you watching the screen.
Risk per trade: How much of your account one trade could lose if its stop-loss is hit. Careful traders decide this before opening the trade, and keep it to a small share of the account.
Drawdown: How far your account has fallen from its highest point. It is a plain way to measure how deep a losing streak has been.

Your account and money

Deposit: Money you move into your trading account so you can trade with it. The exact minimum for your account type is shown during sign-up, before you send anything.
Withdrawal: Money you move back out of your trading account. Deposits and withdrawals have their own plain-English page on this site.
Balance: The money in your account, not counting any open trades. It only changes when a trade closes or when money moves in or out.
Equity: Your balance plus the current profit or loss of your open trades. It is what the account is really worth at this second.
Swap: A small charge — occasionally a credit — for keeping a trade open overnight. The platform shows it before you place the trade, so it is never a surprise.
Swap-free: An account option where those overnight charges do not apply. Exness offers it on some account types.
Demo account: A practice account with virtual money and real prices: free, and with no time limit. Demo results don't guarantee real-account results — but demo mistakes cost nothing, which is why this site suggests starting there.
Standard Cent account: A real account counted in cents: $10 becomes about 1,000 small units, and trades are roughly 100 times smaller than usual. Mistakes cost cents while you learn — more on the account types page.
Verification (KYC): The identity check a broker runs before you trade real money — usually a document such as a passport or ID card. A demo account needs none of this: just an email and a password.

Keep going

Reading a chart

Candles, timeframes, and what a chart can — and cannot — tell you about price.

See how charts work

Your first trade

A calm, step-by-step walk through placing one small trade on a demo account.

Place a demo trade

Beginner FAQ

Short, honest answers to the questions most new traders ask first.

Read the FAQ

Words make sense faster on a real screen.

A demo account gives you virtual money and live prices, free and with no time limit. Open one, find the spread, the lot size and the stop-loss field, and this whole page will click into place — while mistakes still cost nothing.

Open a free demo at Exness