CFDs are complex instruments and come with a high risk of losing money rapidly due to leverage. Excess volatility increases risk further. Be cautious. Past performance is not an indication of future results.
Open an Exness account
Words by unit

Trading words, grouped by what each one measures · Taiwan

A price picture holds two rulers: figures up one side for price, marks along the bottom for time. Every term here names something drawn between them, a reading off one of them, the setting of the rulers themselves — or a figure they cannot measure.

Ask one thing of any term: what would its answer be measured in? An outline is a shape word; a count of price steps, a distance word; a time on a clock, a moment word. Money or lots means the picture has no ruler for it.

Five answers

What kind of thing a word is, before what it means

The answer comes in So the word names Terms that land here
No unit — an outline Something drawn; a finger could trace it chart, candle, body, wick
Price steps, called pips A distance up or down the side ruler pip, spread, stop-loss, take-profit
A time on a clock A point, or a stretch, of the bottom ruler open, close, execution, overnight
A setting, not a measurement How finely both rulers cut the same history timeframe, the time one candle holds
Money, or lots Something owned rather than drawn lot, volume, leverage, margin, balance, equity, drawdown, swap

The last row catches people out. A lot is a unit of size — one lot of EUR/USD is 100,000 euros, 0.01 of a lot a usual smallest step — and margin is money held aside while a leveraged trade is open. Leverage is borrowed trading power: a small sum controls a much larger trade. Balance is the account before open trades are counted, equity the same figure once they are. None of them is drawn — they belong to the account kept by the company that carries out your trades, which is why one picture serves a reader with a large balance and a reader with none.

Group two, close up

Distances: the two points each word spans

The word The two points it spans What it comes out as
Pip One figure on the price ruler and the next along A count of steps: 1.1000 to 1.1001 on EUR/USD
Spread The buying price and the selling price The main cost of a trade — why a new one opens at a tiny minus
Stop-loss, take-profit The opening level and where the trade closes itself — one below it, one above Both chosen in advance: a ceiling on the cost, an exit while it is ahead
Risk per trade That distance, plus the chosen size Money — where the price ruler stops answering and lots take over

The last row is the hinge into group five: a distance stays a count of steps until a size joins it, and one pip is about 10 cents in the smallest trade sizes. Drawdown is the reverse trap: it sounds like a span on the drawing, yet it is an account figure in money — where the safety rules take over.

Group three, close up

Moments: what each word pins to the bottom ruler

The word Point, or stretch What it fixes
Open A point The price at the instant one block of time began
Close A point The price at the instant it ended; until then, nothing is settled
High and low Points left unrecorded The swing inside the block: the extreme price is kept, its minute is not
Execution An instant The moment an order is carried out — price can shift a little in between
Overnight A boundary A trade held across it can pick up the small charge called swap

Group four holds one working word — timeframe — and it resets the other four. Choose another and the same history is recut: distances recounted, opens and closes landing elsewhere, while nothing has happened in the market. Describing a chart out loud starts with that label; a first demo trade shows which instant is the click.

Do it yourself

Four questions that place a word you met elsewhere

  1. Could a finger trace it?

    Then it is a shape word: the answer is a picture, not a number.

  2. Is the answer a number of price steps?

    Then it is a distance, and both of its ends need naming.

  3. Is the answer a time?

    Then say whether it fixes a point or a stretch; only points carry a price.

  4. Is the answer in money or in lots?

    Then the figure lives with the account, beside deposits and withdrawals.

A figure without its unit is not a reading yet

The habit comes from ordinary measuring, not from trading. A kitchen scale, a map with a scale bar and a thermometer print the unit beside the number, because the number alone settles nothing. Trading talk drops it constantly — «it moved twenty», «I was down forty» — so two people agree on a figure while meaning different things.

The bottom ruler deserves the same suspicion. Hours printed along it belong to whatever clock the platform counts in, which need not be the one on the wall beside the screen.

The honest part: a correct unit is not a correct sentence

Grouping terms this way makes a statement checkable. It does not make it right, and says nothing about the block of time nobody has drawn yet.

  • Shape names describe finished time. Turning one into «this shape is followed by a rise» sells certainty that does not exist.
  • A unit says what was measured, not what to do. That a spread is counted in pips settles the definition, nothing else.
  • Demo results do not guarantee real-account results. Words and prices are the same; the money and the nerves are not.
  • Many people lose money when they start. Never trade money you need for living. Negative Balance Protection keeps an Exness account from falling below zero — everything deposited can still go.

Questions about the words themselves

Is a pip a distance or an amount of money?

A distance, until a size is named: one step on the price ruler — 1.1000 to 1.1001.

What unit does a spread come in?

Pips: it is the gap between the buying price and the selling price.

Is drawdown counted in pips?

It is not — drawdown is an account figure, in money.

A term seems to fit two groups. Is that a mistake?

No — a candle is both an outline and a quantity of time. Name the half you mean.

Where does the word volume belong?

With the money group: it is how big a trade is, measured in lots.

Two people described one move with different numbers. How?

Different units, not different eyes: one counted steps, the other money.

Somebody used a term that is not listed here. How is it placed?

Ask what its answer would be measured in; the five groups cover most terms.

Why group the words instead of listing them A to Z?

An alphabet puts spread beside stop out, which share nothing, and splits it from pip, which shares its unit.

Does knowing the unit tell me what to do next?

It does not. It tells you what a sentence is about, and nothing past that.

Which of these words carry no unit whatsoever?

The shape words: chart, candle, body, wick. Figures reach them only through the rulers.

Do these words mean anything different on a practice account?

Not one. A demo carries virtual money and real prices, free and with no time limit: how a demo works.

Who stands behind these definitions?

This site is an independent guide, not a broker: it opens no accounts, holds no money and takes no documents. Unclear wording can go to the help page; the FAQ holds shorter answers.

A unit is easier to believe once you have watched it move.

A demo account carries virtual money and live prices, free and with no time limit. Find a spread quoted in pips, a size quoted in lots, a clock along the bottom — and these groups stop being an idea while nothing is deposited.

Open a free demo at Exness