Introduction:

As our various communities have grown (& spread), it's getting harder to keep up with the language used. The sheer volume of stock market jargon and 🦍ape-speak is an entry barrier to new members, who might struggle to read past the 5th-level-mayo memes. Even reading the sub rules could be difficult (go look now).

To Help counter this, I have prepared a glossary covering many of the frequently used terms. Rather than providing a strictly alphabetical list, I've attempted to group related sections together, so you can skip over entire sections.

You can always CTRL+F to search within this post.

Community Slang / Ape Speak:

🦍 Ape	How the most forum users here refer to one another. The apes are retail investors who are bullish on heavily-shorted stocks like GameStop. See [Apes Together Strong]
Crayons / Crayon Eating	Used by apes in a self deprecating manner. Possibly from "I have neither the time, nor the crayons to explain it to you"
Diamond Hands 💎🤲	When a trader holds on to their stocks or securities for a long time. They believe in the future success of their trade so much that they will hold onto them until profit is obtained. Specifically holding regardless of gains or losses.
FOMO	Fear Of Missing Out aka Panic buying
Infinity Pool / ∞ / p∞l	The set of shares owned by retail traders who have no intention of selling them back to the market.
Mayo	Mayonaise. Origin: [Kenneth C. Griffin] reportedly would not share his mayo at some function. So the name stuck.
MOASS	Mother Of All Short Squeezes - The biggest Short Squeeze ever
Moon / wen moon 🚀?	Traders use these terms to express their belief that the security or stock being mentioned will have a dramatic gain in overall value. When a stock suddenly shoots upward, the stock graph climbs at a near-vertical trajectory, in a sense, heading so high up that it goes to the moon.
Paper Hands 🧻 🤲 / Paperhanding	Paper Hands is when a traders sells their stocks and securities way too early before they were able to reach max profits. See [FUD]
Retard	Anagram of tRaDeR. Also self-deprecating reference, like smooth-brained. Used by Retail traders.
Rocket Ships, To The Moon 🚀🚀🚀	Traders use these terms to express their belief that the security or stock being mentioned will have a dramatic gain in overall value. When a stock suddenly shoots upward, the stock graph climbs at a near-vertical trajectory, in a sense, heading so high up that it goes to the moon.
Smooth Brained Ape 🧠 / Smooth Brained / Smooth / SBA	A stupid person; refers to the lack of surface area on an individual's brain. Usually used in a self-deprecating manner. “I”m just a smooth brained ape 🦍”. See [Wrinkle Brain]
Sneeze / Short Sneeze	A short squeeze, but not the big one.
Squeeze / squoze	Used as a past tense to indicate the squeeze event has (or has not) occurred.
Stonks 📈	See [Stocks] (as in shares of a company). The term is misspelled on purpose (probably via a typo). It is meant as a form of irony and humor. Most often stonks is used when commenting on the financial loss of an investment. The word "Stonks" actually originates from the "The Stonks Meme Guy.”
Tendies 🍗	"chicken Tendies” are gains or profits that are made on an investment.
The floor	The minimum price an [Ape] is prepared to sell a share for
Wrinkle Brain 🧠 / Wrinkle	A Smart person. The general thought is that the more surface area (wrinkles, creases, etc.) a brain has, the smarter the person is. See [Smooth Brain]
YOLO	"You only live once", e.g. when someone risks their entire portfolio on one single stock or options trade.
ZEN Ape ☯	An [Ape] that has been around for some time; has read much of the DD [Due Diligence], is happy to just BUY & [HODL], and is no longer emotionally affected by the actions of [Shills]; Price Manipulation; [Forum Sliding], etc.

Community Slang / Phrases

Apes Together Strong 🦍	Referring to each other as [Apes] is from the prequel to the Planet of the Apes movies. The character Caesar's explanation that "apes together strong" is used as a motto/mantra. This is often repeated in Reddit/Investopedia. If the “apes” are united, then they can be strong enough to outlast those short on the stock. Started at [WSB]
Buy High Sell Low	A joke used when a user posts losses on the forum. If an investor lost money on a trade, they were said to have bought high and sold low. A play on the all too obvious financial advice to buy low and sell high.
Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop, GameStop	Previous advertising/business slogan of GameStop.
Jacked to the Tits	Very excited. From "The Big Short" movie, Paramount Pictures: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=DQ5VfKSYvSk
Power to the Players	The current advertising/business slogan of GameStop.
Pump and dump	A scheme designed to temporarily boost the price of a security through false, misleading, or exaggerated claims. These stocks prices are driven up dramatically and then sold or “Dumped” for profit. See [BagHolder]
Retail owns the Float	The term float refers to the regular shares a company has issued to the public that are available for investors to trade.
Sir, This Is an Arby's	Meme: (a person is giving a strange monologue only to be revealed to be delivering it to a fast food employee when the other person says "Sir, this is an Arby's.”)
This is the Way	A phrase borrowed from Disney’s The Mandalorian. It is the mantra posted alongside claims of trading gains, charts, and rallying calls to buy stocks.
We Like the Stock	Originally attributed to CNBC television personality Jim Cramer, “we like the stock” is used to justify why users hold large positions in stocks like GameStop.
Wife’s boyfriend	From [WSB]. The financial industry and stock trading have been seen as a masculine pursuit where only the strong and ruthless survive. [WSB] imagines themselves as the ultimate losers and wear that as a badge of honor. 4chan mentality: they like to imagine the ultimate pathetic loser as being someone that knows his wife is unfaithful and accepts/supports it.

MOASS - Mother of all short Squeezes:

Catalyst	Some type of event that could cause or does cause the mother of all squeezes.
CS / Computershare	Transfer Agent for GameStop.
Covering / Closing	The act of buying back shares that have been short sold.
Dates	Dates of particular market events that may contribute to [MOASS]
DD / Due Diligence / Deep Dive	Information and data organized in a meaningful way to support a conclusion. "Double Down" used ironically after usage in MSM [Mainstream Media] article pretended not to know what DD it meant.
DRS	Direct Registered Shares. Shares you actually OWN, in your own name, not a "Street Name" via a Broker
Exit / Exit Strategy	Closing a position. An exit strategy is a plan about when and how to close a position.
Failure to deliver (FTD) / FTD Cycles	A failure to produce a share for settlement within the standard settlement timeframe. The Short Hedge Funds have many many ways to avoid this, which caused this whole saga in the first place. https://www.investopedia.com/terms/f/failuretodeliver.asp
GameStop / GME / $GME / The Stock	We like the stock
Gamma squeeze	When hedging against an option causes a chain reaction and the price spikes or plummets. For example, suppose an XYZ $10 call has been sold naked when XYZ's price is $4. Then someone buys calls for $5, $6, $7, $8, and $9. The $5 one likely requires all the shares to be purchased as a hedge, driving up the price. Which then increases the amount of shares needed to hedge for the $6, and so on.
HODL / hold on for dear life	The mating cry of the ape. To hold on to a stock. A now-famous misspelling of "holding” by Bitcoin trader GameKyuubi. Avoiding trading based on short-term price moves. Helps counteract two common destructive tendencies: FOMO [fear of missing out], which can lead to buying high, and FUD [fear, uncertainty, and doubt], which can lead to selling low. This makes "Hold on for Dear Life" a backronym.
Leverage	How much money moves in relation to some base amount. A leverage of 4-to-1, for example, means that every increase of $1 results in $4 and every decrease of $1 results in a $4 loss.
Liquidation	When positions are closed, usually by force of margin call. Usually large positions and usually liquidated quickly, causing very large changes in price. See [MOASS]
Margin call / Marge is calling	When a financial institution demands additional collateral to maintain a lower risk exposure profile. Also a movie that dramatically depicts the 2008 financial crisis.
Mother of all short squeezes (MOASS)	It's the big one. See short squeeze.
Naked	A modifier for options or [short selling] that indicates that the shares don't currently exist as allocated by the position. So a naked call seller would not have any of the shares necessary to satisfy the call contract and is depending on the call to expire out of the money. If the contract becomes [ITM] (in the money) and exercised, the naked call seller must purchase the shares to make good on the contract.
Naked shorts	Hedge Funds sell a share that they don't have. The share is naked until it is "located"/bought.
Rehypothecation	Reuse of an asset for multiple things. For example, you could use shorting to manufacture a synthetic share and then you can use both of them to produce more synthetic shares.
Short / Short Selling	An arrangement where a party will borrow shares of a stock from a stock holder for a regular fee and sell the shares on the market. At a later time, they will (are supposed to) buy back the shares to cover and return them to the lender. The idea is to profit on the reduction in the stock price by selling immediately and buying back later. If the company goes bankrupt, then there's no need for covering, resulting in maximum profits, at the expense of the company and it's employees & shareholders.
Short squeeze	A situation where there are more shares sold short than can be covered on current liquidity. This causes the price to spike because demand exceeds supply. See [MOASS]
T+# / C+#	Number of days after a transaction. T+2 means two days after the transaction. Lots of rules surrounding [settlement] are done on the basis of the transaction date. C+# refer to Calendar days, not trading days.
The Big Short	A movie/book about the 2008 financial crisis and a few people that bet in favor of something that had never happened against all conventional "wisdom." This I can highly recommend.

Bad Actions / Actors:

Bots	Software program that performs automated, repetitive, pre-defined tasks
Brigading	Inciting members to post on other subs that they do not usually frequent, typically in a disruptive manner without meaningful contribution
CoIntelPro	Counter Intelligence Program
Doxing	Exposing personal/private details of someone else (from "documenting")
Forum Sliding	Spamming irrelevant "noise" posts or comments to drown out real DD / news. See [CoIntelPro]
FUD	Fear, Uncertainty & Doubt - Refers to calculated attacks on our forums, and more specifically, morale and individuals
Phishing / Phishy	Social engineering used to trick humans into revealing sensitive info, via offsite links etc
Shill / Shill tactics	Somebody who covertly represents a special interest. Commonly employed to spread [FUD] (Fear, Uncertainty & Doubt). Shills post comments to either encourage or discourage investors to purchase a stock or to change the narrative of actual investors.

Cast of Characters - People:

DFV / DeepFuckingValue / TheRoaringKitty	Keith Gill, Retail Investor, not a cat. Really likes the stock
Gary Gensler (GG)	Chairman of the U.S. [Securities and Exchange Commission]
Kenneth C. Griffin / Kennyboy / Chairman [Mayo]	CEO of [Citadel Securities]. See [Mayo]
Ryan Cohen (RC)	Current chairman of the board and independent investor in GameStop. Brought Chewy.com to success.

Cast of Characters - Institutions:

Citadel LLC / Citadel Securities	Huge [Hedge fund] and [Market Maker] that controls & manipulates most of the market.
Depository Trust and Clearing Corporation (DTCC)	A self-regulatory organization that handles the backend of trade settlements.
Depository Trust Company (DTC)	A subsidiary of the [DTCC] providing security custody in addition to movements for [NSCC]'s settlements and settlements for institutional trades. DTC is a member of the US [Federal Reserve] System.
Federal Reserve (FED)	The central bank of the US. Owns the money printer.
Fixed Income Clearing Corporation (FICC)	A subsidiary of the DTCC created by integrating the Government Securities Clearing Corporation and Mortgage-Backed Securities Clearing Corporation.
Mainstream media (MSM)	Collectively, the media that a regular person might view. Television news channels, newspapers, magazines, etc. Generally they're recognizable household names. Generally biased & pushes narrative provided by their owners/investors.
National Securities Clearing Corporation (NSCC)	A subsidiary of the DTCC that provides clearing, settlement, and counterparty services.
Options Clearing Corporation (OCC)	Similar to [DTC] except for options and derivatives as opposed to securities. It is not a subsidiary of the [DTCC].
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)	A regulatory and enforcement agency of the US federal government.

Cast of Characters - The Market:

Hedge fund (HF)	A type of pooled investment fund that actively manages positions in an attempt to make a profit. They tend to use complex trading, portfolio construction, and risk management techniques.
Main Street	A play on Wall Street. Intended to describe regular people / retail.
Prime Brokers	A bundled group of services that investment banks and other financial institutions offer to [hedge funds] and other large investment clients that need to be able to borrow [securities] or cash
Robinhood (RH)	A modern broker that "innovated" the [payment for order flow] business model. Regarded as complicit in curtailing the initial squeeze.
Short hedge fund (SHF)	A hedge fund that primarily has a short position in a security.
Suits	See [Wall Street]
Wall Street	An actual physical street in New York that is home to many of the biggest financial institutions in the US. Used as a term to refer to the financial institutions as a class.
Whale / Long Whale (LW)	Large holder of a stock, usually an institution or large private investor.

Securities:

Bonds	A debt security that pays interest.
Collateralized debt obligation (CDO)	CDOs can contain mortgage-backed securities as well as other types of debt instruments like corporate bonds or credit card loans.
Crypto / Cryptocurrency	Virtual coins that tend to have public ledgers (i.e. blockchains) for transaction integrity. i.e. there's a limited supply within a particular cryptocurrency and smaller and smaller fractions of that pool are traded over time. Almost all of them are deflationary by design. Many of them use a system called proof of work which is how the coins are "minted" into existence.
Dividends	Some securities will occasionally pulse profits per share out to investors directly. See also [NFT] (unconfirmed)
Exchange-traded fund (ETF)	A type of mutual fund that is bought or sold on exchanges throughout the day. Most of them are index funds.
Float	The number of shares available for public trading as opposed to [restricted stock] or stock held by company insiders.
Index fund	A type of mutual fund that holds the same securities in the same proportions as a specific stock market or bond index. Most exchange-traded funds are index funds.
Mortgage-backed security (MBS)	And who the hell doesn't pay their mortgage?
Mutual fund	A security that allocates its funds to different underlying securities in a proportion. Exchange-traded funds are a type of mutual fund. Buying a mutual fund is like buying a portfolio. They tend to be designed to diversify holdings and reduce risk for the holder. They are bought or sold based on their price at the day's end.
NFT	Non-fungible token (means that it’s unique and can’t be replaced with something else)
Outstanding shares	A company's total amount of shares (includes [Float] and [Restricted stock])
Penny stocks	Stocks that generally trade at less than $1/share.
Restricted stock	Stock (usually owned by company insiders) that is subject to conditions about when and how transfers take place, usually requires prior notice to do so - which results in fewer actually available shares in the market.
Stocks	Securities representing companies, assets, or baskets of companies and assets. They have a price and the value changes over time.

Technical Analysis:

Elliot waves	A technical indicator that characterizes price movements based on how price movements typically occur.
Moving average convergence/divergence (MACD)	A technical indicator that emphasizes changes in pricing trends. More information here.
On-balance volume (OBV)	A technical indicator that attempts to use volume as a measurement of momentum and make predictions on that basis.
TA / Technical Analysis	Technical Analysis - Graph and Number Data analysis / trading on the basis of chart patterns. Maybe less relevant for a heavily manipulated stock.
Volume-weighted average price (VWAP)	A technical indicator that weights price by volume to get a picture of where it "should" be trading. Since it's an average, crossovers aren't uncommon. More here.

Trading:

All time high (ATH)	The highest price or volume on record for a given security.
Alternative trading system (ATS)	Another term to describe [dark pools] or other types of off-market trading arrangements.
Bagholder	An individual who holds stake in an equity that has decreased in value heavily. A Bag Holder typically holds on to these shares or options in the hopes that they will recover.
Bear market	When market conditions produce prolonged and/or substantial declines.
Bearish	A belief that the value of a thing will fall. i.e. I am bearish on SPY.
Beta	A measurement of how a stock performs against the market in general (the S&P 500 for the most part).
Bid rotation	A conspiracy to reduce or increase the price of a security by bidding down or bidding up between all the parties.
Bloomberg Terminal	A reasonably expensive piece of software that gives you a huge amount of information about the market and the securities in it. Sometimes simply called "a terminal."
BTD /BTFD / Buy the dip	When an asset has declined in price in the short-term. Therefore, traders are buying when the price drops in order to profit from some potential future price rise
Bull market	When market conditions produce rising prices or are expected to produce rising prices.
Bull run	Indicates that a security had a substantial increase.
Bullish	A belief that the value of a thing will rise. i.e. I am bullish on GME.
Cash	Value stored in currency as opposed to positions.
Chart	A visual representation of stock pricing and volume.
Circuit breaker	Put in place to interrupt price changing momentum and make sure that information is properly disseminated throughout the market when big moves happen. Could apply to the entire market or specific securities.
Clearing/clearance	The resolution of a settlement process resulting in a successful exchange.
Collateral	Assets or cash provided to a lender to give them an acceptable risk exposure profile.
Consolidation	Periods of time where the price of a security bounces around between a rough high and a rough low.
Continuous net settlement (CNS)	A settlement process used by the NSCC.
Dark pool	A private exchange that is allegedly designed to allow large trades that do not affect the market price of a security as a result of bookkeeping share transfers.
Day trading/trader	Trading on an intraday basis, i.e. purchasing or selling positions and then performing the converse operation generally within a day.
Derivative	A position that derives its value from something else. For example, options are derivatives of their underlying assets.
Exposure	The quantity of currency that was put at risk by opening positions.
Financials	Earnings reports and balance sheets. Used to make a fundamental case for the business.
Front-running	A practice where knowledge of a transaction taking place allows the party with this non-public knowledge to profit from the transaction. Typically this is done by brokerages or market makers.
Fundamental investing/trading	Investing or trading on the basis of balance sheets, earnings reports, sector information, and general financial environment information.
Hedging	Opening positions that will mitigate losses for your primary guesses about asset price direction.
HFT	High-Frequency Trading - A method of trading huge volumes in fractions of a second.
Hold the Line	Holding on to a stock, even if it goes down in value. (See Hodl)
Insider	A slightly overloaded term. Company insiders are company employees that have filing requirements for transfer of their stock. Insider trading is on the basis of privileged knowledge. For example, before an event is public knowledge, the persons that know about the event trade on the basis of information they have that is not public.
Interest	There are numerous financial uses of the term, but the one you'll frequently find in use here is "open interest" which indicates how many of a particular kind of position are being carried from day to day.
Investing	Generally characterized by long-term (1 year or more) holding periods for positions.
Limit order	An order type that expresses a desire to exchange a security at a specific price or better.
Limit up, limit down (LULD)	A reference to [circuit breaker] rules where stocks or market trading in general are halted when there are large enough changes to prices.
Liquidity	The property of being able to be exchanged for cash quickly. More liquid securities can be exchanged quickly for cash and less liquid securities might have delays.
Long	Indicates a bullish strategy such as buying calls, selling puts, buying and holding stock, etc. The belief is that the value will go up.
Margin account	Essentially an account that gives you temporary loans to increase your ability to take advantage of market conditions.
Open interest	Indicates how many of a particular kind of position are being carried from day to day.
Over the counter (OTC)	Used to describe transactions done on [dark pools] - A decentralized market where trading between two parties can take place without the use of a stock exchange. Should be called "under the counter" instead.
Payment for order flow (PFOF)	A compensation scheme between brokerages and market makers where retail investor orders get routed through the market makers. This is opposed to the retail investor paying the brokerage a commission on trades.
Portfolio	A collection of positions.
Position	A purchased or borrowed stake of an asset or derivative.
PostMarket / After hours (AH)	After market hours. US markets are generally open Monday through Friday from 9:30 AM to 4PM Eastern Time Zone. Some trading days have an early close and some trading days don't happen on account of holidays.
Premarket	Before market hours. US markets are generally open Monday through Friday from 9:30 AM to 4PM Eastern Time Zone. Some trading days have an early close and some trading days don't happen on account of holidays.
Price action	The way a price moves over time.
Settlement	The process that happens transparently to you after you buy or sell a position. You might own that position on paper, but it takes time for everything to go through.
Short attack	A planned and coordinated attack by an activist short seller that involves taking out a large short position and then attempting to drive the price down with negative information.
Short interest (SI)	The open interest of short shares, typically expressed as a percentage of [float].
Short ladder attack	A term that was not in common usage before the GameStop saga. It probably refers to a mechanism of price manipulation where one or more parties short at a specific price level to cause the price to drop and then proceed to do it some more after the price has dropped (hence, a ladder).
Short sale restriction (SSR)	When a security drops by 10% or more from the previous day's closing price, it gets put on short sale restriction. This prevents short selling on "downticks" (price movements downward). Once invoked, it's active until the end of the next trading day, provided that the stock doesn't re-trigger the effect.
Stop loss	An order type that allows you to limit the downside of a position.
Swing trading	Trading that generally holds positions more than a day.
Synthetic shares	Formed when a share is sold short. The share is borrowed and then the buyer also has a share. Now there are two shares. Can come from coupled option contracts. If you buy a put and a call you have created a synthetic share. Can be used to repeatedly short sell, or hide FTDs.
Trading	Generally characterized by short-term (under 1 year) holding periods for positions. There are classifications for various kinds of traders - day traders, swing traders.
Trading sideways	Periods of time where the price of a security does not move very much. Usually denotes uncertainty in the market.
Unrealized	Gains or losses of a security are unrealized until you close the position.
Value investing/trading	Investing or trading on the basis of the value being different from the market's current assessment. This could mean that the market price is thought to be too low or too high.
VIX	Market index representing the market's expectations for [volatility] over the coming 30 days
Volatility	The amount of movement of a measurement. Low price volatility means the price does not move much. Used for both prices and volumes and can be as specific as a stock or as broad as the market.
Volume	The quantity of transactions for a given [security].
Wash sale	Not to be confused with [wash trade]. It refers to buying or selling a "substantially similar" security within a 30 day window before or after you sell a security at a loss. Tax related.
Wash trade	Not to be confused with [wash sale]. It refers to a transaction where the buyer and the seller are the same entity or a broker and trader are colluding to manipulate the price. This is obviously not legal.

Options:

At the money (ATM)	Options where the strike price and current underlying price are the same. Can also be used in share offering verbiage by the issuer of the stock.
Call Option	An options contract that gives the buyer of the contract the ability to purchase 100 shares of a given underlying asset for a specified price before a given expiration. A call can be referred to as "deep" if its strike price is far away from the current underlying price.
Deep option	An options contract where the strike price is very far away from the current underlying price. Deep OTM (Out of the Money) Option. Deep ITM (In the Money) Option
Implied volatility (IV)	An options contract implies a certain amount of volatility because the strike price and underlying asset price differ, so there must be some probability of the asset price matching the strike price. When the IV reduces substantially, this is referred to as an IV crush.
In the money (ITM)	An options contract where the underlying asset price has reached the strike price. Can be referred to as a "deep" option which means it's far away from the current underlying price.
Max pain	The price at which the largest number of option holders will suffer financial losses at expiration.
Option	A contact that allows the buying or selling of 100 shares of an underlying asset for a specified price before an expiration. Options have an extrinsic value (commonly known as decay or time value) and potentially intrinsic value (strike price difference with underlying asset price). The seller of an option is also called the writer.
Out of the money (OTM)	An options contract where the underlying asset price has not reached the strike price. Can be referred to as a "deep" option which means it's far away from the current underlying price.
Put Option	An options contract that gives the buyer of the contract the ability to sell 100 shares of a given underlying asset for a specified price before a given expiration. A put can be referred to as "deep" if its strike price is far away from the current underlying price.
Strike price	The arranged price of an options contract. It is set when the contract is opened and cannot be changed.

Other:

Assets under management (AUM)	Similar to net worth except for financial institutions. The approximate value of their positions and cash. There are different categories of assets under management.
Regulation SHO	Designed to address abusive short selling practices.
Self-Referential	see [Self-Referential]

Knock yourself out in the comments...