Concepts
One idea at a time, explained in plain words and shown at work in a real week.
287 concepts, A to Z
52-week highHow close is a market's price to the highest level it reached over the past year, and what does that distance suggest?All-time highWhat does an all-time high mean, and how is that different from the highest price reached in the past year?AlphaWhat does it mean when an asset beats a benchmark, and how do you measure the part of the return the benchmark did not deliver?AnchoringWhy do traders judge today's price against an older number, and what happens when that number has stopped being relevant?AnnualisationWhy is volatility measured over a single week quoted as a yearly figure, and what does that number actually describe?Annualised fundingHow is an eight-hour funding rate turned into a yearly figure, and why compare it with other costs?Annualised returnWhat yearly rate does a short period imply, and why can one week not be trusted to support it?ArbitrageHow do traders make money from the same asset trading at two different prices at the same time?Arithmetic and geometric meanWhy does averaging weekly returns overstate the rate at which capital actually grows?Asset allocationHow do you decide how to split capital across assets, and what does a week of correlated falls show about that split?Asymmetric payoffWhat does it mean when a position's possible gain and possible loss are very different in size?Asymmetry of movesWhen gains and losses are not the same size, what does that imbalance tell you about risk?AutocorrelationDoes this week's return tell you anything about the direction of next week's return?Availability biasWhy do the most vivid market moments feel more common than the weekly summary says they were?Average true rangeHow do traders measure a market's typical bar size, including the jumps between one bar's close and the next bar's open?BacktestWhat does replaying a trading rule on past prices actually prove, and what does it leave unproven?Base case and alternativeWhy should a market view name one likely path and one specific alternative rather than a single prediction?Base effectWhy does the same dollar move register as a much larger or smaller percentage depending on where a market starts?Base rateHow often has a week like this happened before, and what does that frequency tell a trader?BasisWhat is the difference between a futures price and the spot price, and why does it matter?Bayesian updatingHow should a trader change their view when new market data arrives, and how much should one week move that view?Bear marketWhat does it mean to say a market is in a bear market, and how is that different from one bad week?BenchmarkHow do you tell whether a market's gain was actually good, once you compare it with something else?Benchmarking a strategyHow do you know whether a trading strategy actually beat simply holding the asset?BetaHow much does an asset tend to move when a chosen benchmark moves, and what does that ratio reveal about its risk?Bid-ask spreadWhy does a trader pay slightly more than the last price, and why can't candle data show that cost?Bitcoin dominanceWhat does it mean when Bitcoin's share of the whole crypto market grows, and what can the ETH/BTC ratio only partly tell you?Bollinger bandsWhat are Bollinger bands, and how do they show whether a price move is unusually far from its average?BreakoutWhat does it mean when price leaves a range it had been stuck in, and how do you tell one from noise?Bull marketWhat makes a long rise a bull market, and how do you tell it from a single strong week?
Research notes on real market weeks, not investment advice. Sources: Binance spot BTCUSDT and ETHUSDT 1-hour candles and USD-M perpetual funding rates; weekly figures computed by WSTiger.