Concepts
One idea at a time, explained in plain words and shown at work in a real week.
287 concepts, A to Z
False breakoutWhy does a price that pushes above a range and then falls back into it often trap the traders who followed it?FalsificationHow do you tell in advance what result would prove a trading idea wrong, so the idea can actually be tested?Fat tailsWhy do extreme market moves actually happen more often than a bell curve would predict?Fear of missing outWhy do traders buy after a market has already risen, and what does that late buying typically cost them?Fibonacci retracementWhat are the ratio-based levels traders watch after a big move, and why do they work only as a shared convention?Fixed-fraction sizingHow does risking the same share of capital each time change position size as the account balance moves?Funding as sentimentWhat does the sign of a perpetual funding rate actually reveal about which side of the market is crowded?Funding intervalHow often is the funding payment settled, and why does that clock matter if a position is held for only hours?Funding rateWhy do holders of perpetual futures pay or receive money every few hours, and what does that payment reveal?Funding resetWhat does it mean when a perpetual futures funding rate changes sign during a single week?Funding spikeWhat does a brief jump in perpetual funding tell you about who is paying to stay long?Gambler's fallacyWhy does expecting a reversal simply because a losing or winning streak has run long often lead traders astray?Gap between hour and dayWhy can an hourly chart and a daily chart tell opposite stories about the same week?Gap riskWhat happens when a price jumps over the levels where buy and sell orders were sitting?Hedge costWhat does protection actually cost a trader, in regular payments and in gains given up?Hedge ratioIf you hold one asset against another, how much of the second do you need to cancel the risk?HedgingHow does taking an offsetting position soften a loss, and what does that protection cost?HerdingWhy do markets sometimes move together because traders copy each other, and how can you spot it?High-low range estimatorCan volatility be measured from each period's high and low instead of its closing prices?Higher highs and higher lowsWhat does it mean when a market keeps making higher highs and higher lows, and why is that called an uptrend?Hindsight biasWhy does an outcome that looks obvious in retrospect feel like something that should have been predicted?Historical scenario replayWhat happens if you run today's positions through a past week's actual price moves?Historical volatilityHow much did a market actually swing in the past, and why does the length of the look-back window change the answer?Holding periodHow does the length of time a position is held change which risks it faces?Hot-hand beliefWhy do traders expect a rising market to keep rising once it has risen for several weeks?Hourly candleWhat does one hour's record of open, high, low and close capture, and what does it silently leave out?Hourly shockHow much of a whole week's price move can be packed into a single hour, and what does that tell you about how the week unfolded?HypothesisWhat does it mean to state a testable claim about how BTC behaves, and how do you check it against one week's data?Iceberg orderWhat is an iceberg order, and why can a large trade hide behind small visible pieces?Implied volatilityWhat do option prices promise about future swings, and why can't a price chart alone tell you that number?
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.