Glossary: the trading terms on this site

Trading basics

Candlestick (candle)

One bar on a chart, showing four prices of a period: the opening price, the highest price, the lowest price and the closing price. The body is filled in one colour when price rose during the period and in another when it fell; the thin lines above and below (the wicks) show how far price went.

Timeframe (interval)

How much time one candle covers: 1 minute, 5 minutes, 1 hour, 1 day, 1 week and so on. Basics draws its levels on charts from 1 minute up to the daily chart, some also on the weekly chart, and on seconds charts as far as their short history reaches; Untested Levels from 1 second up to the daily chart.

Ticker (symbol)

The short code of an instrument on TradingView, for example ES1! for the S&P 500 future or GER40 for a DAX CFD. The part before the colon, as in CME_MINI:ES1!, is the exchange or the broker. → Supported tickers

Indicator

A script that draws extra information on a TradingView chart. Basics, Untested Levels and Straydog Zones & Levels are indicators: they draw price levels on your chart — they don't trade for you. → The indicators

Support and resistance

A price where buyers stopped a fall before (support) or sellers stopped a rise (resistance). The levels in Basics are such prices: where price reacted before, it often reacts again — but not always. → All Basics levels

Breakout

When price moves through a level and keeps going. When it pokes through and comes straight back, it is often called a false break.

Long and short

Long: you profit when the price rises. Short: you profit when the price falls. With futures and CFDs going short works the same way as going long.

Point and tick

A point is one whole unit of the price, for example from 25,000 to 25,001 on the DAX. A tick is the smallest step a price can move, for example 0.25 points on ES and NQ. What a point is worth depends on the contract. → Value per point per contract

Spread (bid and ask)

The difference between the price you can buy at (the ask) and the price you can sell at (the bid). On a CFD the broker's spread is part of your trading cost.

Leverage and margin

With futures and CFDs you only deposit part of a position's value: the margin. Gains and losses are calculated on the full position, so they can be much larger than the margin — in both directions.

Volume

How many contracts or shares were traded in a period. Prices where a lot was traded tend to matter more, which is why Basics takes its future levels from the main future, where most of the volume is.

Sessions and times

RTH — regular trading hours

The hours the stock market behind an index is open: 09:30–16:00 New York for the Nasdaq-100, S&P 500, Dow and Russell 2000, 09:00–17:30 Berlin for the DAX, 08:00–16:30 London for the FTSE 100 and 09:00–17:30 Amsterdam for the AEX. Futures and CFDs trade far longer, but most of the day's volume arrives during regular trading hours. → Times per market

RTH O — regular trading hours open

The price of your chart at the moment the official stock market opens. For a future that is not its first price of the day — futures have been trading since the evening before — but its price at the official opening moment. → RTH O explained

RTH O index — regular trading hours open, index

The official opening price of the index itself (for example the Nasdaq-100 or the DAX), calculated by the index provider. On futures charts Basics converts it to futures prices with the cash-future difference, so it plots at the correct place; on CFD and index charts it is shown as it is. It often differs from RTH O. → RTH O index explained

Pre-market (PMKT)

The part of the futures trading day before regular trading hours start: for US index futures from 18:00 New York the evening before until 09:30, for the DAX future from the early morning (02:15 Berlin in summer, 01:15 in winter) until 09:00, for the AEX future from 08:00 until 09:00 Amsterdam time. Basics draws its high, low and middle (PMKT H, PMKT L, PMKT M). → Pre-market high and low

Trading day (futures)

For index futures the new trading day starts the evening before — 18:00 New York for US futures. That is why a daily futures candle opens overnight, hours before the stock market opens.

Home timezone

The timezone of the market's own exchange: New York for US indices, Berlin for the DAX, London for the FTSE 100, Amsterdam for the AEX. The indicators work in any chart timezone; setting your chart to the home timezone just makes the chart times match the session times. → Install guide

Instruments

Index (official index, cash index)

A number that tracks a group of stocks — for example the S&P 500 (500 large US companies) or the DAX (40 large German companies) — calculated by an index provider while the stock market is open. You cannot buy the official index itself; you trade it through futures or CFDs. Its official opening and closing prices are the numbers in every market report.

Index future

A contract on the value of an index at a fixed date, traded on an exchange such as CME or Eurex — for example ES on the S&P 500 or FDAX on the DAX. It trades almost around the clock and expires every quarter (the AEX future every month). Its price differs from the official index by the cash-future difference.

Main future

The full-size futures contract of an index, where most of the volume trades — for example NQ for the Nasdaq-100 or FDAX for the DAX. The future levels in Basics and the future gaps in Untested Levels come from the main future. → Main future explained

Mini, micro and nano futures

Smaller versions of the main future at the same price level but with a smaller value per point, for example MES or FDXS, and the nano contracts such as NES. They track the main future closely, but have their own, thinner order book, so their highs, lows and opening prices can differ — for example through a short spike. On these charts Basics shows the levels of the main future, so you trade the levels of the real future. → Main future explained

Continuous contract (NQ1!, ES1! …)

TradingView's chart that always shows the front-month contract and switches to the next one at the roll. NQ1! is the front month, NQ2! the next. A specific contract such as NQZ2026 can also be opened; Basics and Untested Levels then use the levels of the continuous main future.

Contract roll

Most index futures expire every quarter (March, June, September, December); the AEX future expires every month. In the days before expiry the volume moves to the next contract, and the continuous chart on TradingView (for example ES1! or FDAX1!) switches with it. The new contract has three more months to run, so it trades at a different price: right after a roll the gap between the future and its index can jump by tens to hundreds of points. A level from before the roll can then exist twice — as it traded, and in the new contract's prices. In the days around the roll, future levels on mini, micro and nano charts can briefly be off. → Back-adjusted levels

Back-adjusted (B-ADJ)

A TradingView setting for continuous futures charts (Adjust for contract changes, the B-ADJ button at the bottom right of the chart). It shifts older prices by the gap between the old and the new contract, so the history connects smoothly. On or off is your choice: it only moves the candles from before a roll, never the levels. Basics also has b-adj versions of some week, month and moving-average lines; the week and month ones are shown only while they differ from the normal line after a roll. → Back-adjusted levels explained

CFD (contract for difference)

A product of your broker that pays out the price change of an index without you owning anything, for example GER40 or US500. It is traded with the broker, not on an exchange. A CFD follows the official index itself, without the futures premium, so Basics and Untested Levels show index levels on a CFD as they are and convert future levels with the cash-future difference. → Supported CFDs per broker

Spread betting (+SB)

The spread-betting version of a broker's CFD symbol, mainly for UK traders. The indicators treat it like the CFD itself.

Delayed data

Without a real-time data subscription TradingView shows futures and index prices 10–15 minutes late (for an index TradingView then uses a separate delayed feed, such as DJ_DLY:DJI). Basics and Untested Levels work with the free data; a few Basics lines that follow the main future live, such as VWAP and the pre-market range, then update with that delay.

Prices and levels

Cash-future difference (basis)

The gap between the price of an index and the price of its future, for example between the Nasdaq-100 and NQ. It mainly reflects interest and expected dividends until expiry: it changes slowly, shrinks towards expiry and jumps at the quarterly roll. Basics and Untested Levels use it to show index levels on futures charts and future levels on index and CFD charts. → How it works

Official opening price

The first value of an index on a trading day, calculated by the index provider from the opening trades of its stocks. Because those do not all arrive at the same second, it can differ from the price futures and CFDs trade at in that moment. → RTH O index

Closing price: index vs future

The official closing price of an index is set when its stock market closes. The closing price of a future in Basics is its last traded price before the end of its trading day (17:00 New York for US futures, 22:00 Berlin for the DAX future, 21:00 London for the FTSE 100 future, 22:00 Amsterdam for the AEX future). They are two different levels: PsC index and PsC future. → PsC index · PsC future

Settlement price

The official daily price the exchange sets for a future, used to value open positions. It is often close to the last traded price, but not always the same. Basics draws it as PsS future. → Settlement explained

Level

A price that traders watch because the market agreed on it before — an opening price, a closing price, a high or a low. Basics draws them as horizontal lines with a short label. → All Basics elements

Untested level

An earlier level — a closing price, an opening price or a gap — that price has not traded back to since it was made. The Untested Levels indicator draws these. → All Untested elements

Tested today

An untested level that price reached today. Untested Levels shows it in grey for the rest of the day (a filled future gap keeps its colour); the next day it is gone. → Example

One-way day

A trading day that opens at its low and only rises, or opens at its high and only falls. Its opening price stays untested — on the DAX this happens only a few times a year. → Untested open index

Gap

Empty space between two daily candles: one day's whole range lies above the high of the day before (gap up) or below its low (gap down). Indices gap more often than futures, which trade through the night. → Gap index · Gap future

Gap fill (partial fill)

A gap is filled once price has traded through all of it. If price only comes part of the way, the gap is partly filled: Untested Levels then shows only the part that is still open, from the next day on. → How it works

VWAP

Volume-weighted average price: the average price of the day's trades, weighted by volume. Basics calculates it on the main future for today's session. → VWAP explained

ATR (average true range)

The average daily range of the last 14 days. Basics uses it for D ATR H and D ATR L: today's low plus, and today's high minus, one average day. → D ATR H / D ATR L explained

SMA (simple moving average)

The average of the last 20, 50 or 200 daily, weekly or monthly closes. Basics draws these on the index and on the future. → The daily averages of the index explained

Basics settings

Lookback

How many sessions, weeks or months of a line stay on the chart. The default is 1: only the current one. Set it higher to keep earlier levels visible.

Level visibility range

Lines further from the current price than this percentage (default 5 %) are hidden, so they don't squeeze the chart. They return when price comes closer. Setting: General → Level visibility range.

Label

The short text next to a line, such as RTH O or PsC future. Every label can be renamed in the indicator settings. → All labels