asset allocators: when macro funds shift exposure from one asset class to another.

basing: a technical term, backing and filling; typically happens to a stock before moving higher.

bear raid: when traders spread a negative story in an attempt to lower the price of a stock.

beta: relationship or correlation between one particular stock and the overall market.

biscuit: the French translation of cookie; see entry above.

BKX: Philadelphia Stock Exchange/Keefe, Bruyette & Woods Bank Index.

BooBoo the Bear: (putting on the ... costume) metaphor for bearish trading posture. Each appendage (two arms, two legs) represents incremental conviction. See Hoofy the Bull.

breakdown: a technical term; describes when a stock breaks a predefined level of support.

breakout: a technical term, describing when a stock price busts through a particular resistance level

BTK: American Stock Exchange Biotechnology index.

build on strength/weakness: also called the scaling method. Using price action to accumulate positions, i.e., buying more as the stock (index) trades lower.

buy side: the hedge and mutual fund community.

capitulation: a complete selloff on high volume that flushes out all the weak holders.

cash-led: driven by the underlying stocks, not the futures; tends to be a truer tell of direction.

catalyst: the reason for entering a trade; once the catalyst has taken place, the stock should be sold, gain or loss!

churning: heavy trading of stocks without any price movement.

come in: come for sale.

contra-hour: the notion that the price action, or direction, of the market from 2 p.m. ET to 3 p.m. ET will reverse itself in the last hour of trading. It's a freaky, nonsensical, goofy thing that has no legitimate reasoning.

cookie: term of endearment. Derivatives include: cook, cookiepuss, cookmo, cookmeister and cookorama.

dancing between the elephants: trying to game the upside while potential negatives loom.

defined risk play: limited loss potential on a trade.

delta: the change of an option relative to a unit (dollar) move of the underlying security. For instance, if an option has a 0.25 delta, you would expect that option to move 25 cents per unit move of the underlying security. (Check out Todd's three-part column series on options, Are Derivatives an Option? .)

directional play: attempts to benefit from a single directional movement -- up or down.

disconnects: egregious price differential.

drek(ky): having a negative or ugly tone.

DRG: American Stock Exchange Pharmaceutical index.

dry: describes the relative traction or resilience of a stock or sector in the face of a declining market. For instance, if a big cap technology stock is holding firm while the NDX futures come for sale hard, you might say that stock feels dry. It is also possible for the overall market to feel dry. (Check out Todd's column on this topic: Drying Time .)

dry powder: cash on the side.

edge: as in "trading with an edge"; implies waiting for a time when you have an advantage in the risk/reward profile of a trade; rationale for entering a position.

Elmer: Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan.

end-of-day programs: program trades that exacerbate a particular day's overall direction.

fade (fading): a trading style that takes the other side of the predominant direction of the tape (buying into weakness; selling into strength). If the market is looking higher on the opening, a fade would imply a sale of stocks. Conversely, if the tape is looking lower on the opening, a fade would imply buying.

fakakta: Yiddish for crazy, all mixed up.

flows: what I'm "seeing" on the Street. I talk with every major trading desk, so the "flows" relate to the buy and sell interest that's communicated to me by my sales coverage.

fundies: the fundamentals of a stock or of the market.

gamma: measures the rate of change of the delta. Having positive gamma (long volatility or "long vol"), your positions would become "longer" as the underlying stock rises and "shorter" as it falls. For that right, you are paying a premium for those options. (Check out Todd's three-part column series on options, Are Derivatives an Option? .)

gap risk: the risk that a stock may drop up or down a few points, bypassing predetermined stops. It usually occurs when the market is closed or a stock is halted from trading and reopens.

Gekky.com: the fictional company of choice that we use for our trading examples.

Gekmo: this one I'll keep to myself. As Gekmo has helped our collective trading this year, some things need to be kept confidential. Sorry. All I'll say is that Gekmo is the best!

go home: get rid of a position.

green: up.

Greenie: see Elmer.

gun to head: the "gut" feel. If I had to choose a scenario that will unfold, I'll use the "gun to the head" choice. It's not always right, obviously, but it will always be honest.

handles: futures points.

heavy: the same thesis as dry, but in reverse. If that same large-cap technology stock can't rally despite an overall strong tape, it implies sellers in the name, from which you infer that the stock is heavy.

Hoofy the Bull: (putting on the ... costume) metaphor for bullish trading posture. Each appendage (two arms, two legs) represents incremental conviction. See BooBoo the Bear.

jig: momentum, upward price action.

jiggy: when a stock (or when stocks) feel good, or they feel like they want to go higher.

koan: psychology and market forces.

kvetch: Yiddish for complain.

leadership: sectors or stocks that are leading the market in a particular direction.

let it out: sell a position.

limit down: futures trade to a limit level where trading is halted in a single direction. When futures go limit down, only trades that would take the price higher are permitted. It allows the market to cool off after periods of high volatility.

melt: a widespread degradation of stock prices.

metric base: the legs of a market thesis. The three major metrics that I monitor are the fundamentals (state of business), technicals (charts and levels) and psychology (perception is reality).

mojo: our trading superstition, or our trading energy (also known as our koan). As I believe trading energy to be cyclical (as is everything), sometimes we'll attempt to "shake up our collective mojo" by zagging when we should be zigging.

MNX: Chicago Board Options Exchange Mini-NDX index.

momentum players: traders who buy stocks as they're rallying and short them when they're selling off.

momentum trading: stocks in motion stay in motion as traders become emboldened by price action.

mush: to heap praise on somebody and thereby quell any near-term success.

N's: stocks that are part of the Nasdaq 100 index. Contrast to S's.

Nazzdogs: stocks that are part of the Nasdaq 100 index.

NDX: the Nasdaq 100 stock index. Distinct from the larger Nasdaq Composite index, this index trades through the NDX futures, and is the underlying instrument that the Nasdaq 100 unit trust (QQQ:Amex) and the MNX are priced off of.

overbought: very subjective; tends to be a bearish indicator.

oversold: very subjective, tends to be a bullish indicator.

pairs trade: buying the stock of one company while selling the stock of another company in the same industry; dollar neutral.

pin: a process that usually occurs around expiration whereby arbitragers cause stocks to gravitate toward strike prices that have a large open interest; the synthetic pressure for a stock to close at a strike price on expiration.

play(ing) catalysts: trading with a perceived edge.

positive gamma: an option position that causes your position to become longer if the market goes higher, and shorter if the market goes lower.

press it: add to position.

price action: movement.

prints: large quantity of stock, blocks.

psychle: the process of trying to game the psychology of the Fed's actions and its impact on the market.

punting, punts: process of buying cheap out-of-the-money calls or puts around expiration on the chance that there is a large move.

put out: short.

ramp: a hard, fast rally in the market.

ratio: trading an underlying stock against a call or a put when it's not hedged one up. The resulting delta position becomes longer as the stock rises and shorter as the stock falls (positive gamma).

real buying: accumulation by institutions of stock.

red: down stocks.

renting exposure: to buy (or sell) a trading position intraday with the hope of securing incremental performance. Renting infers "going home," or flattening the position by the end of the day.

resistance: a technical term. An inflection point that may impede a stock's upward momentum. Past support, when broken, becomes future resistance.

rolling stops up/down: an extension of the strategy for stops. Rolling a stop is adjusting it to a higher price if the stock is moving your way. For instance, if you buy a stock at $50 and set a $48 stop, you would place a market sale order when the stock ticks at $48. If you bought that stock at $50 and it rallied to $54, you could roll your stop up to $53, which would lock in your profit and define your risk. Conversely, if you're trading from the short side and a stock trades down, you can lower your buy stop (roll it down) to lock in your profit that way.

rotation: when money flows from one sector to another sector.

Ruby: Todd's grandfather, sage and spirit. The one voice of rationality and calm in all this chaos; positive karma. His initials appear at the bottom of Todd's Trading Diary posts.

S's: stocks that are part of the S&P 500 index. When we say it's an "S's over N's type of tape," we're implying the relative outperformance of the S&P over the NDX.

salty: as in "salt in the wounds." Unnecessary gloating as others are getting hurt in the marketplace.

scale(s): buying or selling partial positions at different levels, enabling participation if the tape improves or lower average prices if it goes down.

schnitzeling: or, to schnitzel. A nonsensical term we've used to describe trading a little stock around. A schnitzel could be a small trade, or it could imply taking some of a trade off for a profit. "We schnitzeled in some Gekky.com" simply means that we took some for a trade.

schvitz(ing): Yiddish for sweating.

sell side: the brokerage house analyst community.

shakeout formation pattern: a technical term; occurs when a stock fails at a previous top, falls to break a previous bottom and reverses up a few points and hopefully completes the breakout above the previous tops.

short base: the level of short interest in a stock.

short covering: puts are sold, calls are covered; causes a short-term bid in market, but is considered negative for the bigger supply/demand thesis.

short squeeze: a situation in which a stock has a tremendous short base and any slight upward movement causes massive buying (short covering); causes a short-term uptrend in market.

Sidewinder Sammy the Snake: the most recent addition to Todd's menagerie of metaphors. Sammy represents a slow, sideways-grinding market, a "fluxy" tape.

size large quantities of merchandise.

Snapper the Turtle: metaphor for a "snapback" rally. Can occur either intraday or interday.

snaps: praise.

SOX: Philadelphia Stock Exchange Semiconductor Index.

Spoos, Spooz: S&P 500 futures.

SPX: S&P 500 index.

stick and move: a trading style of taking small trades.

stochastics: a measure of the relationship of the price action in stocks or indices. When the stochastics cross at the bottom (below the 20th percentile), it generally leads to a nice rally. When they cross at the top (above the 80th percentile), it usually portends lower prices. See this entry.

stop levels: levels at which you liquidate a position if that position drops below or rises above a predetermined price.

stops: a trading approach that defines risk if your bet goes against you. If you buy a stock at $50 and set a $48 stop, you would place a "market sale" order when the stock ticks at $48. In the recent environment, I've found this to be a consistently disciplined approach to trading. See rolling stops up/down.

strike price: the price at which you have the right to buy (in the case of a call) or sell (in the case of a put) a particular stock on or by expiration.

support

Sushi Friday: a Cramer Berkowitz ritual of ordering in sushi for lunch on Fridays.

tape: the market, or the stocks in the market.

technical inflection point: a resistance or support level; usually at this point, the stock (or index) is actionable, either breaking out or failing.

tells: stocks or indices that provide microcosms of the overall tenor of the market. Many times they are catalyst-driven, while other times they're just what I consider a proxy for signs of direction. There are no distinct criteria for choosing a tell, just a trader's instinct.

tight stop: using smaller intervals when defining the loss limit on a position.

VIX: Chicago Board Options Exchange Volatility Index.

volatility play: attempts to benefit from stock price movement in either direction; used when the trader is unsure of the direction in a stock but anticipates movement.

wasabi: a very spicy, bright green horseradish paste used as a condiment in Japanese cuisine, particularly sushi. Used in the Trading Diary to mean "What's up?"

whippy and trippy: also known as "choppy and sloppy," this describes a tape that is volatile and illiquid.

whoosh: a fast, hard move in the market, up or down; see capitulation.

XBD: American Stock Exchange Broker/Dealer Index.