Investing glossary

The words the stock market uses, explained the way you would explain them to a friend. Every entry says what the term means, then why it matters — and where you meet it inside Stoxhatch.

• TickerA ticker is the short code that identifies a company on the stock market, like AAPL for Apple.
• ShareA share is one unit of ownership in a company, so owning a share makes you a part-owner of the business.
• PositionA position is what you currently own in one company: how many shares, and what you paid for them.
• Unrealized P/LUnrealized P/L is the profit or loss you would make if you sold right now — real on screen, but not banked until you sell.
• Cost basisCost basis is the average price you paid per share, and it is the number every profit or loss is measured against.
• Investment thesisA thesis is the reason you are buying, written down before you buy, in language specific enough to be proved wrong.
• Confidence calibrationCalibration is how well your confidence matches your accuracy — being right about 80% of the time when you say you are 80% sure.
• DiversificationDiversification is spreading your money across different companies and industries so one bad outcome cannot sink you.
• RiskRisk in investing is the chance of a permanent loss, not the fact that a price moves around.
• ETFAn ETF is a single tradable share that holds a basket of many companies, so buying one gives you a slice of all of them.
• Market capitalisationMarket cap is the share price multiplied by the number of shares — what the market thinks the whole company is worth.
• Market and limit ordersA market order buys at whatever the price is now; a limit order only buys at the price you name, or better.
• QuoteA quote is the current price of a stock: what buyers are offering, what sellers are asking, and what the last trade went through at.
• Extended hoursExtended hours are the stretches before and after the 9:30am–4:00pm ET session when stocks still trade, but with far fewer buyers and sellers.
• Price chartA price chart plots what a stock has cost over time — each point is one trading day's closing price.
• Simulated cashSimulated cash is fake money used to practise investing at real market prices, with nothing to deposit and nothing to lose.
• Live market dataLive market data is real, current pricing straight from an exchange, as opposed to the delayed or invented prices many practice apps use.
• DividendA dividend is a share of profit a company pays out in cash to the people who own its shares.
• Bull and bear marketsA bull market is a sustained period of rising prices; a bear market is a fall of 20% or more from the recent high.
• Compound growthCompounding is growth on top of previous growth, which is why time invested matters more than the size of any single year.
• Investing groupAn investing group is a private set of people — a family, friends or a class — learning together and comparing decisions rather than just returns.
• XP and streaksXP and streaks measure how consistently you show up and think, rather than how much simulated money you made.

You do not need any of this to start. Play without signing up and look words up as you meet them.