Learn the language of finance, one concept at a time
Before you can invest or trade, you need to understand the marketplace itself. This group covers the building blocks: what gets traded, how prices form through supply and demand, and what the numbers on your screen actually mean. Master these and the rest of finance will make a lot more sense.
A share of ownership in a company that entitles you to a portion of its profits ...
A loan you make to a company or government that pays you fixed interest and retu...
An exchange-traded fund that holds a basket of assets and trades on a stock exch...
A statistical measure that tracks the performance of a group of stocks to repres...
The total market value of a company's outstanding shares, calculated by multiply...
The total number of shares traded during a given period, indicating how active a...
The gap between the highest price a buyer will pay (bid) and the lowest price a ...
How easily an asset can be bought or sold without significantly moving its price...
A chart element that shows four prices for a time period — open, high, low, and ...
A bull market is a sustained period of rising prices (typically 20%+ gains) whil...
A portion of a company's earnings paid out to shareholders, usually quarterly, a...
An initial public offering is when a private company sells shares to the public ...
A short abbreviation of letters used to uniquely identify a publicly traded comp...
A regulated marketplace where stocks, bonds, and other securities are bought and...
Instructions for how to execute a trade: market orders fill immediately at the b...
Question 1 of 5
You want to buy a stock but only if the price drops to $50 or below. Which order type should you use?
Is this stock actually worth its price? Fundamental analysis digs into a company's financial statements — revenue, earnings, cash flow — to figure out what a business is really worth. These are the tools professional investors use to separate bargains from traps, and they're the foundation of every serious investment decision.
The total amount of money a company earns from selling its goods or services bef...
The company's total profit after all expenses, taxes, and costs have been subtra...
Net income divided by the number of outstanding shares, showing how much profit ...
The price-to-earnings ratio divides the stock price by earnings per share, telli...
The ratio of a company's stock price to its book value per share, indicating whe...
The cash a company generates from operations minus capital expenditures — the mo...
A financial statement showing what a company owns (assets), what it owes (liabil...
A financial statement that shows a company's revenue, expenses, and profit over ...
A financial statement tracking actual cash moving in and out of a business from ...
Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization — a measure of c...
The interest rate used to convert future cash flows into their present value, re...
Weighted average cost of capital — the blended rate a company pays across its de...
The estimated value of a business beyond the explicit forecast period in a disco...
The calculated true worth of a company based on its fundamentals, independent of...
Profitability ratios showing what percentage of revenue remains after different ...
Question 1 of 5
A stock trades at $200 per share and has earnings per share of $8. What is its P/E ratio?
Fundamental analysis asks 'what is this worth?' — technical analysis asks 'what is the market doing right now?' These tools look at price patterns, momentum, and volume to identify trends and potential turning points. They're pattern-based heuristics, not crystal balls, but they help traders time entries and exits with more discipline than gut feeling alone.
Price levels where a stock historically tends to stop falling (support) or stop ...
A smoothed line on a price chart that averages closing prices over a set number ...
The Relative Strength Index is a momentum oscillator ranging from 0 to 100 that ...
Moving Average Convergence Divergence is a trend-following indicator that shows ...
Three lines plotted around a moving average: the middle band is the SMA, and the...
A measure of how much and how quickly a stock's price swings — higher volatility...
The general direction of a stock's price over time — uptrend (higher highs and h...
A chart overlay showing how much trading volume occurred at each price level ove...
The rate at which a stock's price is accelerating or decelerating, used to gauge...
Conditions identified by oscillators like RSI where a stock has moved too far to...
When a stock's price moves above a resistance level or below a support level wit...
When a stock's price moves in one direction but a momentum indicator like RSI or...
Question 1 of 5
A stock has an RSI of 78. What does this most likely indicate?
Picking one great stock isn't a strategy — managing a portfolio is. This group covers how to balance risk and return across many positions, measure whether your returns are actually good for the risk you took, and understand how bad things could get in a downturn. These concepts separate amateur stock pickers from serious investors.
Spreading investments across different assets, sectors, or geographies so that a...
A measure from -1 to +1 of how closely two assets move together — +1 means they ...
A measure of how much a stock moves relative to the overall market — a beta of 1...
The excess return of an investment relative to its benchmark after adjusting for...
A measure of risk-adjusted return calculated as (portfolio return minus risk-fre...
A statistical measure of how widely an investment's returns are dispersed from i...
An estimate of the maximum loss a portfolio could experience over a given time p...
The peak-to-trough decline in portfolio value before a new high is reached, meas...
A standard index or portfolio used as a reference point to evaluate an investmen...
The strategy of dividing your portfolio among different asset classes like stock...
Periodically adjusting your portfolio back to its target allocation by selling a...
A return metric that accounts for the amount of risk taken to achieve it, allowi...
A framework by Harry Markowitz showing that investors can construct portfolios t...
The set of portfolios that offer the highest expected return for each level of r...
Question 1 of 5
A portfolio returns 14% annually with a standard deviation of 20%. The risk-free rate is 4%. What is the Sharpe ratio?
Derivatives are financial instruments whose value comes from something else — a stock, an index, a commodity. Options and futures let you hedge risk, speculate with leverage, or structure complex payoffs. The math behind them, especially the Black-Scholes model and the Greeks, is some of the most elegant in all of finance. These are powerful tools, but they demand respect.
A contract giving you the right, but not the obligation, to buy (call) or sell (...
The fixed price at which an option holder can buy (call) or sell (put) the under...
The date after which an options contract is no longer valid — if not exercised o...
A mathematical model that calculates the theoretical price of European-style opt...
A set of risk measures describing how an option's price changes in response to u...
A position taken specifically to offset or reduce the risk of another position, ...
A standardized contract obligating the buyer to purchase, or the seller to sell,...
Borrowing shares from a broker and selling them with the intention of buying the...
Using borrowed money or derivative instruments to amplify potential returns — it...
The market's forecast of how much a stock's price is likely to move, backed out ...
Describes whether an option has intrinsic value: in-the-money (ITM) has value if...
A strategy where you own the underlying stock and sell a call option against it,...
Question 1 of 5
You buy a call option with a $100 strike for a $5 premium. The stock finishes at $112 at expiration. What is your profit per share?