Forex glossary

Forex terms, in plain English.

The vocabulary you need before you place a trade - every key forex term defined clearly, no jargon for the sake of it.

Pip
The standard unit of price movement in forex, usually the fourth decimal place of a quote. If EUR/USD moves from 1.0916 to 1.0917, that's one pip.
Lot
A unit of position size. A standard lot is 100,000 units of the base currency; mini lots (10,000) and micro lots (1,000) let traders size smaller.
Leverage
Borrowed exposure that lets you control a large position with a small deposit. 30:1 leverage means £1,000 controls £30,000 - magnifying both gains and losses.
Margin
The deposit a broker requires to open a leveraged position. It's collateral, not a cost, and is returned when the position closes.
Spread
The difference between the bid (sell) and ask (buy) price. It's effectively the broker's fee, paid on every trade.
Bid / Ask
The bid is the price you can sell at; the ask is the price you can buy at. The ask is always slightly higher - the gap is the spread.
Long / Short
Going long means buying, expecting the price to rise. Going short means selling first, expecting it to fall. Forex lets you profit either way.
Stop-loss
A pre-set order that closes a losing trade at a defined price, capping the loss. Trading without one is the fastest way to blow an account.
Take-profit
A pre-set order that closes a trade once it reaches a target price, locking in the gain automatically.
Currency pair
Two currencies quoted against each other, like GBP/USD. The first is the base, the second is the quote currency.
Risk-to-reward
The ratio between what you risk and what you aim to make. A 2:1 ratio means risking one to make two, so you can be profitable while winning under half your trades.
Position sizing
Calculating how large a trade to place so that hitting your stop-loss costs exactly your fixed risk amount. Size is derived from the stop, never guessed.
Drawdown
The peak-to-trough fall in an account's value. Managing drawdown - not predicting the market - is what keeps traders solvent.
Slippage
The difference between the price you expected and the price you actually got, common in fast or thin markets.
Liquidity
How easily an asset can be bought or sold without moving its price. Forex's major pairs are among the most liquid markets in the world.
Volatility
How much and how quickly a price moves. Higher volatility means bigger opportunities and bigger risks.