Market lingo

Retail investors who band together, especially around meme stocks. 'Apes together strong' celebrates the collective buying and holding power of a crowd. Self-deprecating but communal.

The highest price an asset has ever reached. A 'new ATH' means it's in uncharted territory, above every prior peak.

Someone left 'holding the bag' — stuck with a stock that's fallen far below what they paid, often hanging on and hoping it climbs back.

A sustained decline — commonly defined as a drop of 20% or more from recent highs — paired with pessimism. 'Bearish' means you expect prices to fall. (Picture a bear swiping its paw downward.)

A large, well-established, financially solid company with a long track record — the household names. Generally seen as relatively safe and stable. The name comes from the highest-value chips in poker.

A sustained stretch of rising prices and optimism. 'Bullish' means you expect prices to go up. (Picture a bull attacking by thrusting its horns upward.)

Buying after a price drop on the bet that it's temporary and will recover. Works great — right up until the dip keeps dipping.

Investing a fixed amount on a regular schedule regardless of price, so you automatically buy more when it's cheap and less when it's expensive. It smooths out the risk of badly timing a single purchase.

Doing your homework before investing — reading filings, financials, and understanding the business. On forums, a 'DD post' is a long writeup laying out the bull or bear case.

Holding a position through wild swings without flinching or selling. A badge of conviction (or stubbornness). The opposite of paper hands.

A cash payment a company distributes to shareholders out of its profits, usually each quarter. Your cut for owning the stock — though plenty of companies pay none and reinvest instead.

A company's annual dividend expressed as a percentage of its share price, so you can compare income across stocks. A $4 yearly dividend on a $100 stock is a 4% yield.

A basket of assets — stocks, bonds, or other holdings — that you buy and sell as a single ticker, just like a stock. An easy way to own many things at once: an S&P 500 ETF, for instance, holds all 500 companies.

The urge to buy something only because it's already going up and you don't want to miss the gains. A classic way to end up buying high right before the pullback.

Negative talk about an investment. Sometimes it's genuine bad news, sometimes it's spread to scare people into selling. Calling something 'FUD' dismisses it as manipulation — but labeling news as FUD doesn't make it false.

Originally a drunk typo of 'hold' in a 2013 Bitcoin forum post, now a badge of honor. It means refusing to sell through the ups and downs — a long-term, hold-no-matter-what stance.

The first time a private company sells shares to the public — 'going public' and listing on an exchange. It's often where the hype around a long-awaited company peaks.

A company's total market value: share price multiplied by the number of shares outstanding. It's how 'big' a company is by market value — not the same as its revenue.

Share price divided by earnings per share — roughly, how many dollars investors pay for each dollar of annual profit. A high P/E signals big growth expectations (or hype); a low one can mean cheap (or troubled).

Selling at the first sign of trouble — or the first whiff of profit. Used as a gentle insult for weak conviction.

A scheme where people hype a stock to inflate its price, then sell their own shares into the buying frenzy — leaving latecomers holding the losses. It's illegal market manipulation.

When the people behind a project or asset suddenly cash out and abandon it, collapsing the price and leaving holders with little or nothing. The term came from crypto, but the move is as old as markets.

Betting a stock will fall: you borrow shares, sell them now, and aim to buy them back cheaper later. You profit if the price drops — but losses can be unlimited if it rises instead.

When a heavily shorted stock rises, forcing short sellers to buy shares back to limit their losses — which pushes the price up even more, in a feedback loop. The 2021 GameStop saga is the famous example.

A deliberately misspelled 'stocks,' from a meme. Ironic shorthand for the market — especially when it's behaving irrationally and going up for no good reason.

The total revenue opportunity available if a product captured 100% of its market. It's a real, useful planning number — and also a favorite buzzword in pitch decks and earnings calls to make an opportunity sound enormous. The metric is legit; sky-high TAM claims deserve a healthy dose of skepticism.

Slang for profits or gains, from 'chicken tenders' as a reward. 'Getting tendies' means making money on a trade.

A hope (or prediction) that a price will rise dramatically. A stock that's climbing fast is 'mooning.' Pairs with rocket emojis and excessive optimism.

How much and how fast a price swings up and down. High volatility means big, rapid moves — more risk and more opportunity; low volatility means calm and steady.

An all-in, high-risk bet on a single stock or option — usually with money you probably shouldn't be risking. Celebrated on forums; not something a financial advisor would ever recommend.