Bear Market: A market in which the prices are declining.

Broker: A company or individual who negotiates trades on behalf commercial institutions and the general public.

Bull Market: A market in which the prices are rising.

Commission Fee: A fee charged by a broker for executing a transaction.

Commodity: A product that can be used for commerce. Some of the types of commodities include agricultural products, metals, petroleum, as well as foreign currencies.

Deposit: Money offered by a prospective buyer as an indication of good faith in entering into a contract. An example would be a deposit used towards purchasing property when setting an offer.

Double Tops and Double Bottoms: Appearing as an M or W on a technician’s bar chart, double tops and double bottoms have a tendency to indicate major market movements.

Elliot Wave Theory: Technical Market timing Strategy that predicts price movements on the basis of historical price Wave patterns and their Underlying psychological motives.

Eurodollars: A short term certicicate of deposit in U.S. dollars guaranteed by a bank outside the U.S. and outside the jurisdiction of the US. It could be either a foreign bank, or a subsidiary of a U.S. bank.

Expiration: The time and date an option contract expires.

Face Value: The amount of money printed on the face of the certificate of a security, the original dollar amount incurred.

Fundamental Analysis: A method of anticipating future price movement using supply and demand information.

Futures Contract: A legally binding agreement, traded on a commodity exchange, to buy or sell a commodity at a date in the future. Future contracts are standardized according to the quality, quantity, and delivery time and location for each commodity.

Key Reversal: Combines the outside day and and the closing price reversal. The essential pattern difference from the closing price reversal is that both opening and closing prices exceed the extremes of the previous day’s range.

Market Cap: a measurement of a publicly traded company’s size equal to the share price times the number of shares outstanding.

Moving Average (MA): The average of security, index, or commodity prices constructed in a period as short as a few minutes or as long as several years that show trends for the latest data available.

Oscillator: Technical indicator that allows a trader to measure overbought or oversold conditions in sideways markets.

Relative Strength Index (RSI): A popular oscillator used by commodity traders showing the relative strength between buyers and sellers.

Resistance: A level above which prices have had difficulty penetrating.

Sideways Market: A situation where stock prices change little over a specific period of time.

Speculator: A person who tries to make money buying and selling futures and options with the sole intention to make a quick profit.

Stochastic Index: A computerized tool measuring overbought and oversold conditions in a stock over a certain period.

Stock Market: A market in which shares of different companies are bought and sold.

Technical Analysis: Anticipating future price movements using historical prices. trading volume, open interest, and other trading data to study price patterns.

U.S. Treasury Bonds: Government-debt security with a coupon and original maturity of more than 2 years. Interest is paid semiannually.

Volume: The number of purchases or sales of a commodity futures contract or shares of a stock made during a specific period of time. Most often for one trading day.