Glossary

The terms retail traders run into.

Definitions for what shows up across the dashboard, the regulatory watch, and the desk notes. Keep this open in a tab.

• ATM straddle

  A long call and a long put at the same at-the-money strike and same expiry.

  Used to read the magnitude (not direction) the options market is pricing for an underlying. Sum the at-the-money call price + the at-the-money put price for the next standard expiry; that sum is the expected move into expiry. Underpins the expected-move panel on the dashboard.

• Cross-asset alignment

  Whether equities, bonds, FX, and credit are confirming or contradicting one another.

  Equities up while credit spreads widen and the dollar bids = misalignment; the equity move is fragile. Equities up with credit tightening, the curve steepening, and risk currencies bidding = aligned, durable. One of the five dashboard dimensions.

• Edge-triggered alert

  An alert that fires once when a condition crosses a threshold, not continuously while the condition holds.

  The opposite of a level alert that re-fires every tick. Invariant Markets alerts are edge-triggered with a 60-minute cooldown — you get one notification when a regime flips, not a stream of identical notifications while the regime holds. Designed to inform without spamming.

• Expected move

  The magnitude the options market is pricing into the next standard expiry.

  Computed from at-the-money straddle pricing for the next standard option expiry. It is a magnitude only — the market is implying "a move of about this size," not a direction. Useful for sizing risk and recognizing when the implied range is wider or narrower than usual.

• Liquidity conditions

  How costly risk transfer is right now and how stable depth is.

  Tight bid-ask spreads, deep top-of-book size, and orderly two-sided flow = good liquidity. Widening spreads, thinning depth, lopsided flow = degrading liquidity. One of the five dashboard dimensions; degraded liquidity is the single best argument for trading less.

• Marginal capital

  The next dollar coming into or leaving the market — the capital that sets the price at the margin.

  Markets price at the equilibrium of the next buyer and the next seller. "Marginal capital" is shorthand for who that next participant is and what they want. When the marginal participant is leveraged and forced (e.g., margin calls), prices move sharply against them. When the marginal participant is patient (e.g., systematic rebalancing), prices grind.

• Market psychology

  The behavioral state of participants — sentiment, positioning, fear/greed extremes.

  Not a forecast. A description of where the crowd sits — heavily long, heavily short, capitulated, complacent. Extremes in either direction are tradable; the middle of the distribution is not. One of the five dashboard dimensions.

• Market structure

  Whether the prevailing trend / range is intact, weakening, or breaking.

  A trend is intact when each pullback is shallower than the last and each push exceeds the prior high. It weakens when impulses shrink. It breaks when prior support fails on increasing participation. One of the five dashboard dimensions.

• Pattern day trader (PDT)

  A FINRA designation for accounts that day-trade four or more times in five business days.

  PDT-flagged accounts have historically required at least $25,000 in equity. The 2026 rule change drops the floor to $2,000 while keeping the four-trades-in-five-days threshold. See the regulatory watch and the PDT rule changes guide.

• Regime

  A persistent state of the market with characteristic behavior — a "kind of market."

  A trending regime, a chop regime, a vol-expansion regime, a stress regime. The five gauges describe the current regime; the verdict at the top synthesizes them into a single posture. Regimes hold for hours to weeks; the holding-period stamp on the verdict tells you how long the current one has held.

• Regulation T

  Federal Reserve rule governing initial margin requirements for stock purchases on credit.

  Sets the minimum customer equity required to buy securities on margin (currently 50%). Different from FINRA maintenance margin (the ongoing equity floor) and house margin (broker-set, often higher than the regulatory floor). Worth knowing if you trade on margin.

• STAND DOWN / DEFENSIVE

  Verdict state indicating conditions favor capital preservation, not opportunity-seeking.

  The dashboard verdict transitions to DEFENSIVE when liquidity, structure, or trade-environment scores fall below stress thresholds. It is a description of the environment, not an instruction to flatten — but it is the kind of environment in which trading less is statistically the right call. See methodology for the threshold logic at a high level.

• T+1 settlement

  The current US equities settlement cycle — trade date plus one business day.

  Adopted in May 2024, replacing T+2. Affects when proceeds from a sale clear and when securities must be delivered. Practical impact on retail accounts: faster cash availability after a sale, tighter window for FX conversion if you trade ADRs.

• Trade environment

  Whether the current volatility regime favors offense, defense, or patience.

  Calm + trending = offense. Expanding vol + breaking structure = patience. Stressed + uncoordinated = defense. The trade-environment gauge synthesizes realized and implied vol with structure quality into a single read. One of the five dashboard dimensions.

• Verdict

  The synthesized read across all five dashboard dimensions, expressed as a posture word.

  CONSTRUCTIVE / CAUTION / DEFENSIVE / NEUTRAL. The verdict is the answer to "what kind of environment am I trading into right now?" — not "what should I buy?" Holding-period stamp shows how long the current verdict has held; longer holds = more stable regime.

• Wash sale

  A loss disallowed for tax purposes because you re-bought a substantially identical security within 30 days.

  IRS rule: if you sell at a loss and buy back the same security (or a substantially identical one) within 30 days before or after the sale, the loss is disallowed and the disallowed amount is added to the cost basis of the new purchase. Active retail traders who close-and-reopen positions for tax reasons must track this carefully.