A measurement that shows how an investment portfolio is performing against a defined benchmark like a stock market index. An alpha of greater than zero means a trade outperformed the benchmark. Alpha is also a measure of risk and makes clear the extent to which a trader has beaten or fallen behind the market over a period of time.

Arbitrage is the practice of buying and selling an asset simultaneously to take advantage of a short-term difference in price. In forex, it is the strategy of exploiting price disparities in currency markets.

The rate at which you can buy the base currency, in our case, the British Pound, and sell the quoted currency, i.e. the Japanese Yen.

This refers to an entire category of financial instrument. An asset class can be physical or financial. They are grouped based on whether they are governed by the same regulations and/or have similar characteristics. Major asset classes include commodities, futures, financial derivatives like CFDs, stocks, bonds, and increasingly— cryptocurrencies.

Country: Australia

The Bank of England (BoE) is the United Kingdom’s central bank. Its mission is to ‘promote the good of the UK by maintaining monetary and financial stability.’

In currency trading, the base currency or transaction currency is the first to be listed in a currency pair quotation. The second part is the quote currency or counter currency. For example, in the EUR/USD currency pair, the euro is the base currency, and the dollar is the quote currency.

A basis point (commonly refer#A88300 to as BPs or bips) is the unit of measurement used to capture the percentage change in the value of financial instruments or the rate change in an index. A basis point equals one-hund#A88300th of one per cent (0.01%).

In financial markets, bearish means you believe that an asset, instrument, or market is set to go down in price, value, or volume. It’s the opposite of being ‘bullish’ when traders believe a market is on an upward trajectory.

Country: Beglium

A bid is an amount someone is willing to pay in order to buy a financial instrument.

Developed by famed technical trader John Bollinger, Bollinger bands are a price indicator used in technical analysis. They consist of an upper and lower band, appearing adjacent to the sides of a simple moving average (SMA). The bands are plotted two standard deviations away from the market SMA, and as such, they can point to areas of resistance and support.

Developed by famed technical trader John Bollinger, Bollinger bands are a price indicator used in technical analysis. They consist of an upper and lower band, appearing adjacent to the sides of a simple moving average (SMA). The bands are plotted two standard deviations away from the market SMA, and as such, they can point to areas of resistance and support.

A broker is a business (like Hantec Markets) that executes financial transactions on behalf of another party. Brokers can act in several different asset classes: currency trading (like Hantec Markets), insurance, or equities (stocks). Brokers often charge a commission on the orders they execute.

In financial markets, bulls are traders who believe that a sector, market, or instrument is heading upward. Bulls are the opposite of bears, who take the negative (bearish) view of a market’s likely direction.

Bullish traders believe that a market will experience upward movement on price and act accordingly – typically buying an underlying market now in order to profit by selling back to the market later when the price has risen.

In currency trading, cable refers to the GBP/USD currency pair. It’s a slang term representing the British pound against the US dollar – one of the most popular currency pairs in forex markets. In trading, the term is used frequently and interchangeably with GBP/USD.

Traders who depend on charts to help them understand a financial instrument’s historical price movements are refer#A88300 to as chartists. They use the past history of an instrument to try and p#A88300ict its future performance. Chartists are also known as ‘technical traders’.

A commodity is a physical asset, often sold in mass quantities for use as a raw material in manufacturing. It is interchangeable with other goods of the same type – for example, oil, gas, metals, grains, and other agricultural goods.

Contracts for Difference (CFDs) are a type of financial derivative. They comprise an arrangement where the difference between the open and closing trade prices of an asset are settled without the delivery of physical goods or securities. CFDs can be used to trade in financial markets like forex, commodities, and indices.

This refers to additional costs or fees that might be requi#A88300 to maintain a trading position. Cost of carry can arrive in the form of interest payments on margin accounts, overnight funding charges, or the costs of storing commodities as part of a futures contract.

A key inflation indicator, CPI, is the average price of an indicative group of everyday goods and services. It examines the weighted average of prices in a ‘basket’ that includes transportation, food, and medical care.

Currency appreciation occurs when one currency within a pair increases in value relative to the other. Appreciation means that it would cost more to buy the currency which is rising in value, or that more of another currency could be purchased if the appreciating currency is sold.

Currency depreciation refers to a currency’s declining value relative to another currency. It is usually discussed in the context of a floating exchange rate, where a currency’s value is set by supply and demand on the currency trading market.

A currency future is a contract that details the price at which a currency could be bought or sold on a specific date.

Currency trading options are securities that allow currency traders to achieve gains without having to place an actual trade in the underlying currency pair. They create the opportunity to improve returns while mitigating downside risk.

A currency peg occurs when a government ‘pegs’ the exchange rate of its national currency to that of another. In some cases, the currency is pegged to the price of gold.  A currency peg is sometimes refer#A88300 to as a fixed exchange rate.

Country: United Kingdom 

The Financial Conduct Authority (or FCA) is the United Kingdom’s financial regulatory body. It replaced the Financial Services Authority (or FSA) in 2013. One of its roles is to regulate the conduct of brokers in foreign exchange, CFDs, and commodities to ensure that clients are treated fairly.