Stock market dictionary

Debt that the holder can exchange for a set number of the company's shares, at a conversion price usually fixed above the stock price on the day the notes are sold.

Company filingStock Trading

Shares of companies whose demand changes little as the economy grows or shrinks, commonly found in consumer staples, utilities and health care.

Stock screenerEconomics

An options spread that is long one option in a later expiration and short one option of the same type in a nearer expiration, at a different strike price.

Option chainOptions

A trading session in which a major stock index closes lower on higher volume than the session before, read by traders as a sign of institutional selling.

Price chartSwing Trading

A measure of how many times a company's earnings per share would pay its dividend per share, used to judge how much room the payout has if profits fall.

Company filingDividends

Changes analysts make to their earnings per share forecasts for a company over time, usually shown as the consensus now against its level 30, 60 and 90 days earlier.

Quote pageEarnings

The difference between a stock's last closing price before an earnings report and its opening price after the report, shown on a chart as empty space between two bars.

Price chartEarnings

A company's release of preliminary quarterly results or revised guidance before its scheduled earnings report, usually because results will differ materially from what it previously told investors.

Earnings releaseEarnings

A company's earnings per share divided by its share price, expressed as a percentage, which is the P/E ratio turned upside down.

Quote pageInvesting

An index that resets every member to the same percentage weight at each scheduled rebalance, regardless of each company's market value.

Fund fact sheetInvesting

A sale of stock by a company that is already publicly traded, or by its existing holders, usually priced overnight or over a few days at a discount to the last close.

Company filingStock Trading

The number of shares a company would have if every outstanding option, restricted stock unit, warrant and convertible security were turned into common stock.

Company filingStock Trading

The number of new applications for state unemployment insurance filed in a week, published weekly by the US Department of Labor as an early read on layoffs.

Economic calendarEconomics

A label for the conditions the market is trading in, such as trending or ranging, calm or volatile, risk-on or risk-off, used to decide which strategies to run and at what size.

Price chartEconomics

A prop firm evaluation rule requiring trades on a minimum number of separate days before the account can pass, whether or not the profit target has already been reached.

Prop firm rulebookProp Trading

A line on a price chart made by dividing a stock's price by an index level each day, so its slope shows whether the stock is doing better or worse than the index.

Price chartSwing Trading

An SEC registration, usually on Form S-3, that lets an eligible company register securities in advance and sell them in pieces over time through prospectus supplements.

Company filingStock Trading

A distribution of additional shares to existing holders in proportion to what they own, stated as a percentage of shares held, paid in place of or alongside a cash dividend.

Dividend historyDividends

A position made by buying a call and selling a put on the same underlying, at the same strike and expiration, whose payoff at expiration matches owning 100 shares bought at that strike.

Option chainOptions

The estimated worth, at the end of a forecast period, of all the cash a business is expected to generate in every year after that period, expressed as one lump sum.

Valuation modelInvesting

A way of counting dilution from options and warrants that assumes the company uses the exercise proceeds to repurchase its own shares, so only the net addition enters the diluted count.

Company filingInvesting

The pattern of implied volatility across the expiration dates of one underlying's options, usually read as a curve from the nearest expiration to the furthest.

Option chainOptions