Educational publication only. Not investment, tax, or legal advice. No fiduciary relationship. Hypothetical / paper results do not indicate future performance. Full disclaimer

This classroom is an educational publication, not advice. Study tools, labs, and paper results stay hypothetical. Read the disclaimer.

Reference

Words we actually mean

A finance glossary of 25 investing terms, each with a plain-English definition, a worked example and the mistake people make with it. If a term would still work as an order ticket, we defined it until it would not.

A

Abstain: A node with nothing honest to say stays quiet. Zero news articles is not a mood of 50. Thin tallies do not become secret leans.

B

Buying power: A leveraged figure that looks like cash. Studying a size against it makes a small idea look cheaper than it is. Not powder.

C

Classroom book: The impersonal $100,000 model every student sees. Illustrative weights, not your account and not a target allocation.
Correlation: How two series tend to move together. Near 1 they travel as one. Near 0 they wander separately. In stress, many correlations rise — the grid goes one color.

D

Degraded run: A snapshot too old, or a source offline, labeled Cached — not Live. Fluent notes on a stale tape are stories. No paper records on a degraded run.
Deployable cash: Settled, unleveraged dry powder. The only cash figure this classroom will study a size against.
Drawdown: The fall from a previous peak to a later trough, as a percent of that peak. A quiet market can still strand you in a deep hole.

F

Fee drag: The compounding gap between a gross classroom path and the same path after costs. Small annual gaps become large stories over time.

G

Gate: A process check that can reject an idea before it becomes a fill — hours, stale data, cash floor, daily-loss brake, position cap. About process, not whether a name is “good.”

H

HHI: Herfindahl-Hirschman Index: the sum of squared portfolio weights. Higher means the book is closer to a single bet. 1 / HHI is a rough “effective number of names.”

K

Kelly fraction: f* = p − (1 − p) / b. The growth-optimal fraction under assumed odds. Fragile to bad p and b. Never an order size for a person.

M

Margin cash line: An accounting shadow that can print negative. A warning about how the account is financed, not a pile you can spend.
Money mask: Percentages, prices, and leans stay real; dollar size is normalized to the shared model. Masking is how a publication avoids becoming per-person advice.
Monte Carlo (toy): Many made-up paths under assumed drift and volatility (geometric Brownian motion). A teaching fan, not a forecast.

P

Paper fill: A hypothetical journal line at a staged quote. No broker, no routing, no live order. Inherent limits: hindsight, no real fear, no taxes.
Publisher line: Classroom English for staying impersonal, bona fide, and regular. One book for every student. Not legal advice; counsel still classifies a live product.

R

Regime: A weather system for markets — trending, ranging, stress — read from breadth, width, and stretch. A backdrop for reading, not a prediction of the next season.
Research lean: A tally of voting nodes: bullish, mixed, or bearish. A score, not a ticket, not a forecast.

S

Signal vs gate: A constructive lean can still produce zero fills if a size rule refuses. The clash is the lesson. A failed cap is not a stock grade.
Sleeve: A group of holdings that tend to share an economic story — equity, rates, real assets, cash. Diversification is about sleeves, not ticker count.
Staged quote: A classroom price used as a prop for the math. Not a licensed live feed and not something to trade against.

T

Twelve nodes, ten votes: The classroom voting board shows twelve instruments. Ten carry directional weight. Kelly (sizing) and cycle study are shown and silent.
Two surfaces: The publication students pay for, and the operator engine that is never sold. Confusing the rooms is how a research desk becomes an advice product.

V

VaR (classroom): A percentile from a toy simulation — here, starting equity minus the 5th percentile of simulated endings. Not a maximum loss and not next year’s result.
Volatility: How much a path wiggles. Not the same as ruin, and not the same as drawdown.