Pip

A broker is a person or company that helps facilitate your buying and selling of an instrument through their platform (in the case of an online broker). They usually charge a commission.

The opposite of a bear market is a bull market. When the stock market is experiencing a period of rising stock prices, we call it a Bear Market. An individual stock, as well as a sector, can also be called bullish or bearish.

A metric indicating the relationship between a stock’s price relative to the whole market’s movement. If a stock has a beta measuring 1.5, this means the when the market moves 1 point, this stock moves 1.5 points, and vice versa.

The bid is the price traders are willing to pay per share. It is set against the ask price, which is the price sellers are willing to sell their shares for. What do we call the difference between the bid and the ask price? The spread.

This when traders buy and sell within a day. Day trading is a common trading strategy. However, if someone day trades, they may also make long term investments as well (a long-term portfolio). The following two terms only apply to share trading:

This is a place where trades are made. Two well-known stock exchanges are the NASDAQ and the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE).