Trading words, in plain English.
The words you meet in BuildTrade™ and in the guides: what each one means, how it is worked out, and where it misleads. The app shows the same words when you point at a term.
A
Account equity
What the whole account is worth right now: cash plus the open positions at their current prices.
How it’s worked out. Balance + unrealised profit and loss, marked at the venue’s mark price.
Where it misleads. Equity includes open profit that can vanish before it is closed. Counting it as income is how a good week turns into a bad month.
Available to trade
What is free to open new positions or withdraw: your equity minus the margin already in use.
How it’s worked out. Account equity − margin in use, as reported by the venue. Paper mode uses the paper engine’s cash the same way.
Where it misleads. A large available balance is not a reason to size larger; size comes from the cap and the stop.
B
Breakeven win rate
The win rate you must beat for this reward : risk to make money over many trades. Below it you lose over time; above it you profit.
How it’s worked out. 1 ÷ (1 + reward : risk). At 1 : 2 it is 33%, at 1 : 1 it is 50%, at 1 : 0.5 it is 67%.
Where it misleads. It assumes every loss is exactly 1R and every win reaches the target. Slippage, fees and stops not honoured all raise the real bar.
C
Chasing a loss
Placing a trade to win back money you just lost, or to catch a move you missed — a trade your plan never approved.
How it’s worked out. There is no formula: it is a trade whose reason is the last trade, not the setup. The journal’s mood tag and the daily loss limit on bots are the two places the app catches it.
Where it misleads. Winning one chased trade teaches the wrong habit; the result of a single trade says nothing about the decision.
Closed P&L
The result a fill locked in: the part of a position it closed, at that price, after the fee.
How it’s worked out. (fill price − entry price) × the size closed, for a long; the other way round for a short; minus the fee on that fill.
Where it misleads. Partial closes split one trade across several fills, so one fill’s number is not the trade’s.
D
Daily loss limit
The loss, as a share of the bot’s capital, at which it pauses itself. A guard against a fault such as a bad fill or a venue outage, not a verdict on the strategy. Off means no daily pause.
How it’s worked out. The engine adds the day’s closed results; past the limit it pauses until you resume it, and tells you on Discord if that is set up. Resumed the same day (UTC), it pauses again at its next bar, because the day’s loss still stands.
Where it misleads. The limit counts closed trades, so an open position that keeps losing is not yet in the sum.
Data mining
Trying many rule variants on the same history and keeping the best. With enough tries, one of them beats the past by chance alone, and the more you tried the less the winner means.
How it’s worked out. The best of N random results is better than a single random result; the more variants tried, the higher the best looks without any edge behind it.
Where it misleads. The backtest cannot see how many variants you tried before this one; only you can.
E
Expectancy
What one trade earns on average, wins and losses together. Positive means the strategy pays over many trades.
How it’s worked out. (win rate × average win) − (loss rate × average loss). In R: the average R-multiple of all closed trades.
Where it misleads. It is an average: a run can sit far below it for a long stretch. Fewer than thirty trades is too few to trust the sign.
F
Fee
What the venue charged on this fill. Resting orders that add to the book pay the lower maker rate; orders that take from the book pay the taker rate.
How it’s worked out. Rate × fill notional, from the venue’s published schedule and your volume tier. The ticket estimates it before you place the order.
Where it misleads. A fee that looks tiny per trade is large per year for a strategy that trades often.
Funding
A small payment perpetual positions exchange every hour to keep the perp price near the spot price. Positive: longs pay shorts; negative: shorts pay longs.
How it’s worked out. Rate × position notional, charged each hour to the side the rate says, as the venue publishes it. The countdown beside it is the time to the next payment.
Where it misleads. The rate is per hour and small, so it looks negligible until a position is held for a week at high leverage.
H
Hold-out
The run cut by time: the first part is what the rules were tuned on, the last part is what they met afterwards. If only the first part made money, the rules fit the past.
How it’s worked out. The backtest is split at a date; the strategy’s settings are chosen on the first stretch and the second stretch is scored with those settings untouched.
Where it misleads. Peeking at the hold-out and tuning again turns it into part of the training data; it only counts once.
K
Kelly fraction
A formula that turns win rate and payoff into the bet size that grows the account fastest on paper.
How it’s worked out. f = W − (1 − W) ÷ R, with W the win rate and R the average win divided by the average loss.
Where it misleads. A small change in the inputs moves the fraction a lot. Run it on an inflated win rate and it sizes you straight into ruin.
L
Leverage
Borrowed exposure. At 5×, a $1,000 margin controls a $5,000 position, so every 1% price move is 5% of your margin.
How it’s worked out. Position notional ÷ margin. The venue caps it per market and lowers the cap as the position grows.
Where it misleads. Leverage looks like a size control; it is a margin control. Sizing to the maximum leverage puts liquidation inside the range of ordinary moves.
Limit order
Buy or sell only at your price or better. It waits in the order book until the market comes to it, and may never fill.
How it’s worked out. The order rests at the price you set; it fills when someone trades against it. A limit set beyond the current price fills immediately like a market order.
Where it misleads. An order that fills at once because the price sits past the market is a market order with a cap, and a price that is never reached is a trade never taken.
Liquidation
The venue closing your position by force because the loss has used up the margin it requires. The price at which that happens is the liquidation price.
How it’s worked out. The price at which the position’s loss leaves only the maintenance margin. Higher leverage posts less margin, so the price sits closer to the entry.
Where it misleads. A stop does not guarantee you are out before liquidation: a gap can jump both lines at once.
Longest losing streak
The most losses in a row anywhere in the run. Any edge produces streaks; this is the longest one the test saw, and live trading can produce a longer one.
How it’s worked out. Walk the closed trades in order and count consecutive losses; the longest count is the streak.
Where it misleads. A longer streak live than in the test is not proof the edge is gone; it is what a longer sample produces.
M
Margin
The part of your own money set aside for a leveraged position: notional ÷ leverage.
How it’s worked out. Initial margin opens the position; the venue’s smaller maintenance margin is what must remain before liquidation. Both are shares of the notional.
Where it misleads. Margin is not the most you can lose: a gap past liquidation can cost more, and the venue’s maintenance margin is far below what you posted.
Margin in use
The part of your balance the venue is holding against your open positions right now.
How it’s worked out. The sum of each open position’s margin, as the venue reports it. It is released as positions close.
Where it misleads. It is not your risk: a small margin at high leverage can carry a large notional.
Mark price
The price the venue uses to value open positions and decide liquidations: a blend of the order book and other venues, so one odd trade cannot trigger a liquidation.
How it’s worked out. The venue’s published formula combines its own book with prices from elsewhere; the Trade screen shows it per position next to the entry.
Where it misleads. A stop triggered on the last traded price and a liquidation on the mark price can sit at different levels.
Market order
Buy or sell now, at whatever price the order book offers. It fills at once; the price is the part you do not control.
How it’s worked out. The order takes the best resting prices on the other side of the book until the whole size is filled, so a large order walks down the book.
Where it misleads. The last traded price is not the price you get; in a thin book or a fast market the fill can be far from it.
Max drawdown
The deepest fall from a high point of the account to the low that followed — the worst stretch you would have sat through.
How it’s worked out. For every point on the equity curve, the drop from the highest point before it; the largest of those drops, as a share of that high.
Where it misleads. A backtest saw one order of events; a different order of the same trades can produce a deeper hole. The Monte Carlo check shows that range.
Monte Carlo
The same trades shuffled into random orders, like reshuffling a deck. The end point is the same; what changes is the path — and how deep the dips along the way can get.
How it’s worked out. The closed trades are shuffled many times; each shuffle gives a drawdown, and the run reports the spread of them and the share of shuffles that hit the ruin line.
Where it misleads. Shuffling keeps the trades themselves; if the test period was kind, every shuffle is kind too.
N
Net P&L
Total profit minus total loss over every trade in the test — the one number the rest explain.
How it’s worked out. The sum of every closed trade’s result after fees and, where the engine models it, funding.
Where it misleads. One big winner can carry a losing method for a whole test. The expectancy and the losing streak show whether the total is typical.
O
Open interest
The total size of all open positions in this market, in dollars. It grows as new positions open and shrinks as they close.
How it’s worked out. The sum of all open long positions, which equals the sum of all shorts, valued at the current price.
Where it misleads. It is not volume. Heavy trading with flat open interest is positions changing hands, not new ones.
P
Per-trade cap
The most you’ve agreed to lose on any single trade, written as a share of the account so it scales as the account does.
How it’s worked out. Cap × account equity = the dollars at risk. Divided by the distance from entry to stop, that gives the size; the Trade screen’s risk-based sizing does exactly this.
Where it misleads. A cap only holds if the stop is honoured. Gaps, thin order books and stops moved “just this once” all lose more than the cap.
Position notional
The full dollar value of the position, before leverage is taken into account.
How it’s worked out. Size × price. Fees and funding are charged on it, whatever the margin.
Where it misleads. Margin is what you put up; notional is what you hold. Comparing a fee to the margin instead of the notional makes it look larger than it is.
Position sizing
How much of the account goes into one trade. It decides how big a win or loss is before the market decides which one you get.
How it’s worked out. Risk-based: dollars at risk (cap × equity) ÷ distance to the stop = size. Fixed-fraction and other models exist; the strategy builder’s sizing panel names the one in use.
Where it misleads. A size chosen from the margin a venue allows has nothing to do with risk. Leverage sets the maximum, the cap and the stop set the size.
Profit factor
Money made on winners ÷ money lost on losers. Above 1 the strategy made money over the period; below 1 it lost.
How it’s worked out. Gross profit of all winning trades divided by the gross loss of all losing trades, fees included on both sides.
Where it misleads. One outsized winner lifts it for a whole test. It also says nothing about the order of results, so a strategy with a deep drawdown can carry a fine profit factor.
R
R-multiple
A trade’s result measured in units of what it risked. Risk $100, make $250 = +2.5R; lose the stop = −1R.
How it’s worked out. Trade result ÷ the dollars at risk at entry (the distance to the stop × size). The Portfolio uses the average loss as 1R where no stop was recorded.
Where it misleads. If the stop moves after entry, the R the trade reports is not the R you planned.
Reduce only
The order can only shrink a position you already hold. It never opens a new one or flips you to the other side.
How it’s worked out. The venue trims the order to the open position’s size, or rejects it if there is no position to reduce.
Where it misleads. With no position open the order is refused, which is the point, not a fault.
Regime
Whether the market has been trending or going sideways lately, read from the largest coin’s daily bars.
How it’s worked out. The efficiency ratio on the daily chart: the net move over a stretch divided by the sum of every bar’s move. Near 1 the price went one way; near 0 it went back and forth.
Where it misleads. It describes the recent past, not the next week, and one coin’s daily bars are not every market’s.
Reward : risk
How much a trade can make compared with how much it can lose. Risking $100 to make $200 is 2 : 1.
How it’s worked out. (target − entry) ÷ (entry − stop), for a long; the other way round for a short. The Trade screen shows it as 1 : N.
Where it misleads. The ratio says nothing about how often the target is reached. A huge planned ratio on a target the price rarely hits is worth less than a modest one that fills.
Risk of ruin
The share of simulated runs that lost three quarters of the account from a peak, a hole most accounts never climb out of.
How it’s worked out. From the Monte Carlo shuffles: the share of shuffles whose drawdown crossed 75% from a peak.
Where it misleads. Zero in the test means none of the shuffles crossed the line, not that it cannot happen.
S
Slippage
The gap between the price you expected and the price you got. Market and stop orders pay it; limit orders avoid it by sometimes not filling.
How it’s worked out. Fill price − expected price, in the direction that costs you. Larger orders, thinner books and faster markets all widen it.
Where it misleads. It is invisible on a chart and easy to leave out of a test, which is one reason live results fall short of backtests.
Stop loss
The price at which the trade is closed for a loss, set before you enter so the loss can’t grow past your cap.
How it’s worked out. A stop order resting at the venue, or one the bot engine holds; it turns into a market order when the price trades through it. The distance from entry to stop is your 1R.
Where it misleads. A stop is not a guaranteed price: in a fast market the fill can be worse than the trigger. Very tight stops get hit by ordinary noise.
Stop order
An order that stays dormant until the price reaches your trigger, then becomes a market order. It is how a stop loss is placed.
How it’s worked out. The venue watches the trigger; once the price trades through it the order is sent as a market order and fills at the prices then available.
Where it misleads. The trigger is not the fill: through a gap or a thin book the fill is worse than the trigger, sometimes by a lot.
T
Take profit
The price at which the trade is closed for a gain — the target you decided on before entering.
How it’s worked out. A reduce-only order resting at the target price. On the Trade screen it tracks the reward : risk setting while risk-based sizing is on.
Where it misleads. A target that is never reached is not a flaw in the market. If most trades turn back before it, the reward : risk you planned is not the one you get.
Trading plan
The short list of setups you decided in advance to trade, with the rules for entering, exiting and sizing each one.
How it’s worked out. Written before the session, not during it: which setups count, where the stop goes, how size is chosen, and what makes you stop for the day.
Where it misleads. A plan that is only in your head bends to the moment. One that has no exit rule is half a plan.
Trailing stop
A stop that follows the price at a set distance and only moves in your favour. It fires once the price pulls back by that distance from its best level.
How it’s worked out. The venue tracks the best price since the order was placed and keeps the trigger a fixed percentage behind it; it only ever reduces the position.
Where it misleads. It still fills at market once triggered, with the same slippage as any stop.
U
Unrealised P&L
What the open positions would make or lose if closed at the current price. It changes with every tick and is not yours until the position closes.
How it’s worked out. (mark price − entry price) × size, for a long; the other way round for a short. Fees to close are not yet taken out.
Where it misleads. Open profit feels like money; a stop that is moved to protect it is the usual way it turns into a loss.
V
24h volume
The dollar value of everything traded in this market over the last 24 hours.
How it’s worked out. Every fill’s size × price in the window, as the venue reports it.
Where it misleads. A day’s number hides when the trading happened; a quiet market can carry one busy hour.
W
Walk-forward
Tune the rules on one stretch of history, test them on the next, slide both windows forward, repeat. Only the tested stretches count.
How it’s worked out. A series of hold-outs: each window tunes, the next scores, and the scored stretches are joined into one out-of-sample record.
Where it misleads. Short windows leave too few trades per stretch; long ones hide how settings drift.
Win rate
The share of trades that closed with a gain. 40% can still be very profitable when winners are bigger than losers.
How it’s worked out. Winning trades ÷ all closed trades. At 2 : 1 reward : risk, 40% of trades winning gives 0.4 × 2 − 0.6 × 1 = +0.2R a trade.
Where it misleads. A high win rate with small wins and rare large losses is the most comfortable way to lose money. Chasing the win rate alone tightens targets and widens stops.
The guides put these words to work, one question at a time.
Meet the words where you use them.
In the app, pointing at a term opens the same explanation beside it. Paper trading on live prices is free for as long as you like.