Modern Portfolio Theory

Established in 1952, Modern Portfolio Theory (MPT) argues that a single investment’s risk and return characteristics shouldn’t be viewed alone.  Rather, they should be analyzed based upon how the investment affects the health of the overall portfolio in...

Market Order

The simplest of the order types, a market order is a buy or sell order to be executed immediately at the current market prices.  As long as there are sellers and buyers, the market order is filled.  Marker orders are used when certainty of execution is a priority over...

Market Maker

A market participant or member of a firm or exchange that also buys and sells securities for its own account at prices it displays in its exchanges own trading system.  The objective of the market maker is to profit from the bid-ask spread, or the amount the ask price...

Market Cycle

Markets tend to move in a cyclical trajectory, marked by 4 phases.  First is the accumulation phase where the market has bottomed and is marked by early investors seeing an opportunity to buy assets cheaply or jump on a growing trend.  Next is the mark-up phase, where...

Management Fees

Management Fees – The fees and expenses associated with having an investment fund professionally managed.  Typically, there is an investment manager who is compensated for their time and expertise in selecting investments and managing the portfolio as a whole. ...

MACD

A acronym for Moving Average Convergence Divergence, MACD is a technical indicator used to identify moving averages that may be indicating the coming of a new trend, bullish or bearish.  The MACD is one of the most popular trading indicators and can be applied to...

Long

The opposite of a short trade, a long position occurs when a trader has purchased an asset they are waiting to sell when the price goes up.  “Long” is also used to specify an open trading position, meaning the buyer currently owns shares in an...

Limit Order

Limit Order – A type of order to buy or sell a security at a specified price or better.  For buy limit orders, the order will only be executed at the specified limit price (or a lower price).  For sell limit orders, the order will only be executed at the...

Leverage

Using borrowed funds to increase a trading position beyond what cash alone could buy.  In brokerage firms, leverage is used in the form of margin trading (where the margin is the minimum amount required to execute a trade utilizing leverage).  Essentially, leverage is...

Historical Returns

A facet of technical analysis that looks to the past rate of return of a bond, stock, security, index, or fund to predict possible future data points within the standard deviations.  Historical returns may also be used by analysts to predict future price returns or to...