Reference
Markets
The language of markets, defined plainly — the terms our coverage uses and what they actually mean.
B
- Bear Market
- A prolonged period of falling prices, conventionally a decline of 20% or more from a recent high. Like a bull market, it is a descriptive label rather than a precise measurement.
C
- Capitulation
- A phase of heavy, indiscriminate selling in which holders give up regardless of price, often on unusually high volume.
I
- Index
- A rules-based measure of a group of assets, such as the S&P 500 or FTSE 100. Most are weighted by market capitalisation, so the largest constituents dominate the reading.
L
- Liquidity
- How easily an asset can be bought or sold without moving its price much. Liquid assets have many willing buyers and sellers and tight spreads; illiquid ones can only be sold quickly at a…
M
- Market Capitalisation
- Share price multiplied by the number of shares outstanding — or, for a cryptocurrency, price multiplied by circulating supply. It measures the total market value of what exists.
V
- Volume
- The quantity of an asset traded over a period, usually a day. It measures participation, not direction: a large move on thin volume reflects fewer participants than the same move on heavy volume.