Trading Terminology Explained

Ask/Offer: The price that a seller is asking for to sell their shares at. This is the lowest amount of money that the seller is willing to accept.

ASX: Stands for The Australian Securities Exchange (ASX). The ASX brings buyers and sellers together to trade listed securities like shares, options, and other financial instruments.

Bear Market: A bear market is marked by investor pessimism which can cause prices to continue falling, adding to further negative sentiment. Essentially a bear market is the opposite of a bull market. That means if the market falls by 20% or more from the 52-week high, it has become a bear market.

Bid: The price at which buyers are willing to pay for or buy the shares on the market.

Broker: An individual or trading firm that charges a fee/commission for executing buy and sell orders for an investor.

Bull Market: A bull market means the share market is rising and investor sentiment is confident, further encouraging other investors to buy. Generally, when the share market is ‘bullish’, the economy is strong and unemployment is low.

Capital: Any available cash or assets that help to shape your investment strategy.

CHESS: Stands for Clearing House Electronic Subregister System and is the computer system used by the ASX to manage the settlement of share transactions and to record shareholdings.

Conditional Order: Allows you to set specific price conditions for your trade, and only when those conditions are met, our systems will place your trade in the market.

Confirmation: A trade confirmation which provides all information of an executed trade and should be retained for your records. Also known as a ‘Contract Note’.

Diversification: A risk management strategy that involves investing across or within different asset classes to minimise the potential of being adversely effected by one industry or asset class. In other words, diversification is about not having all your eggs in one basket.

Dividend: A portion of a company’s profit that it decides to distribute to eligible shareholders. The frequency of dividend payments is up to the company.

Equity: Refers to the investment you’ve made to purchase and own shares of a publicly listed company.

ETF: Exchange Traded Funds are similar to managed funds but can be traded on an exchange and are liquid. Most ETFs aim to closely track the performance of an index or underlying asset/s less any fees and/or costs.

HIN: Holder Identification Number is a unique number issued by the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) when you become CHESS sponsored by a broker.

IPO: Initial Public Offering refers to the process whereby a company raises equity capital by offering shares to the public for the first time.

Limit Order: An instruction to place a limit on either the highest price you are willing to pay, or the lowest price you will accept. 

Liquidity: Refers to the ease with which an asset, or security can be converted into cash without affecting its market price.

Market Order: An instruction to buy or sell shares at the best available market price, during market hours.

PID: Stands for Participant Identification Number. This is the Broker’s identification number. Your share trading account is a service offered through Australian Investment Exchange Limited (AUSIEX), PID 6381 or 6382.

Portfolio: Refers to the collection of shares that you own at any given time. You can own multiple shares in multiple companies and across different industries among multiple accounts. Your total collection of shares is referred to as your share portfolio.

Prospectus: Refers to an offering document which provides information such as key features and risks of a security to potential investors. This includes information about the issuer of the security.

Risk/Market Risk: Any uncertainty with respect to your investments that has the potential to negatively affect your financial welfare.

Settlement: When you purchase or sell shares, you exchange the title or legal ownership of those specific financial products for money. This exchange is called settlement, it takes place two business days after a trade occurs for equities.

Share Registry: All ASX listed companies have a share registry appointed to them to manage its book of shareholders and associated administration work. A share registry can contact you on behalf of the company for any shareholder matters. This includes to manage the distribution and payment of dividends, organising dividend reinvestment plans, corporate actions, and shareholder voting.

Spread: The difference between the best bid and best offer prices quoted for a company.

Stocks/Shares: A share is a portion of ownership or equity that you can have in a company.

Volatility: A measure of fluctuation in the price of a security.

Volume: Refers to the number of the securities traded over a given period of time.

Yield: The rate of return on an investment over a set period of time, expressed as a percentage.