KNGXAccount currency
The currency your balance is held in. Profit and loss on every instrument is converted into it at the prevailing rate, so a EURUSD trade on a USD account carries no conversion but a EURGBP trade does.
Algo trading
Placing orders from a program rather than by hand. In MetaTrader it must be enabled both in the terminal toolbar and in the expert advisor's own dialogue before an EA can trade.
Ask
The price you buy at. Always the higher of the two quoted prices.
Backtest
A simulation of a strategy against historical data. It proves the rules were profitable on data the developer could see, which is not the same as proving they work.
Balance
Realised money in the account. It changes only when a position closes, and it is the only figure you can withdraw.
Base currency
The first currency in a pair. In EURUSD the base is the euro, and one lot means 100,000 euro.
Bid
The price you sell at. Always the lower of the two quoted prices.
Broker
The counterparty to a CFD. The price you trade is the broker's price, and it will differ slightly from every other broker's.
CFD
Contract for difference. An agreement to exchange the difference in an instrument's price between opening and closing, with no ownership of the underlying.
Commission
An explicit per-lot charge, usually on raw-spread accounts, applied on both opening and closing.
Contract size
How many units one lot represents. 100,000 units for most forex pairs, 100 ounces for gold. Always in the instrument specification.
Copy trading
Automatically mirroring another account's trades in your own, scaled to your balance. Their risk becomes your risk.
Demo account
An account trading simulated money against live prices. Same spreads and execution, no financial consequence.
Deviation
The maximum slippage in points you will accept on a market order before it is rejected instead of filled worse.
Drawdown
The fall from an equity peak to the following trough, quoted as a percentage. Recovery needs a larger percentage than the loss, and the gap widens fast.
Equity
Balance plus floating profit and loss. This is the number margin level is calculated from.
Execution model
How orders are filled. Market execution accepts the price available at the server; instant execution requotes if the price moved.
Expert advisor
A program attached to a MetaTrader chart that can place, modify and close orders automatically.
Expiry
The time at which a pending order cancels itself. Orders default to good-till-cancelled, which outlives most of the ideas that created them.
Floating profit
What an open position is worth if closed right now. Not yours, not withdrawable, and reversible in seconds.
Free margin
Equity minus used margin. What is left to open new positions with.
Freeze level
The distance from price inside which an existing order or stop may not be modified or cancelled.
Gap
A jump in price with no trades in between. Stops fill at the first price beyond the gap, not at the stop level.
Hedging account
An account that allows opposing positions in the same symbol to be held separately, rather than netting them into one.
Leverage
The ratio that sets how much margin a position requires. It changes your capital efficiency, not your risk.
Limit order
A pending order to enter at a better price than the current one. Buy limits sit below the market, sell limits above.
Liquidity
How much can be traded at a price without moving it. Thin liquidity means wide spreads and more slippage.
Long
A buy position. It profits when price rises.
Lot
The unit of trade size. One standard lot is a different number of units on every instrument, so always convert it to money per point.
Margin
The deposit held while a position is open. Released when the position closes.
Margin call
A warning issued when margin level falls below a threshold, indicating positions may soon be closed automatically.
Margin level
Equity divided by used margin, as a percentage. The number that triggers margin calls and stop-outs.
Market order
An instruction to fill immediately at whatever price is available. Certainty of execution, uncertainty of price.
MetaTrader 4
The older MetaQuotes platform. Fewer instruments and timeframes, but a very large ecosystem of existing expert advisors.
MetaTrader 5
The current MetaQuotes platform. More timeframes, a faster strategy tester, an economic calendar, and depth of market.
Netting account
An account that merges opposing positions in the same symbol into a single net position.
Non-farm payrolls
A monthly US employment release, and one of the most reliably volatile scheduled events for the dollar and gold.
Overnight
Holding a position through the daily rollover, which triggers a swap adjustment.
Pending order
An order placed to trigger at a future price rather than immediately. Limits and stops are both pending orders.
Pip
The standard smallest quoted increment on a forex pair, normally the fourth decimal place. A five-decimal quote shows tenths of a pip.
Point
The smallest price increment the instrument quotes. On gold at two decimals, one point is one cent.
Position size
The volume of a trade, in lots. The single largest determinant of your equity curve's shape.
Quote currency
The second currency in a pair, and the one profit is denominated in before conversion.
Requote
An offer of a different price when the requested one is no longer available. A feature of instant execution accounts.
Risk per trade
The money you will lose if the stop is hit, ideally a fixed percentage of equity applied without exception.
Rollover
The daily point at which open positions are financed forward, usually 00:00 server time, triggering swap.
Scalping
Trading very short holding periods for small moves. Extremely sensitive to spread and commission, and to broker execution speed.
Short
A sell position. It profits when price falls, and requires nothing to be borrowed on a CFD.
Slippage
Being filled at a different price than requested because the market moved between the click and the server. It runs in both directions.
Spike
A brief violent move that reverses. Common at releases and at thin hours, and the usual cause of an apparently unfair stop.
Spread
The gap between bid and ask. Paid once on entry, and it widens around news, rollover and thin liquidity.
Stop loss
A resting instruction to close a position at a set level, executed server-side whether or not your platform is running.
Stop order
A pending order to enter at a worse price than the current one, used to catch breakouts. Buy stops sit above the market, sell stops below.
Stop-limit order
A stop order that, once triggered, places a limit order rather than a market order. Protects against gap fills at the cost of missing fast moves.
Stop-out
The automatic closing of positions when margin level falls below the broker's threshold.
Stops level
The minimum distance from the current price at which a stop or pending order may be placed. Rejected stops are usually inside it.
Swap
The financing adjustment applied to positions held through rollover. Charged triple on Wednesdays to cover the weekend.
Swap-free
An account where swap is replaced by a flat administration fee after a grace period, offered for religious reasons.
Take profit
A resting instruction to close a position in profit at a set level.
Tick
A single change in price. Real-tick backtesting uses recorded ticks rather than generated ones and gives far more honest results.
Trailing stop
A stop that moves in your favour as price advances and never moves back. MetaTrader's built-in version only runs while the terminal is open.
Used margin
The portion of equity currently locked up by open positions.
Volatility
How far price moves in a given period. It sets how far a stop must sit to survive normal noise.
Volume step
The smallest increment of lot size the instrument allows. If 0.05 is rejected, the step is 0.1.
VPS
A hosted machine that keeps a trading terminal running continuously, close to the broker's server. Uptime is a strategy component, not a luxury.
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