A hedge fund is an investment fund open to a limited range of investors that undertakes a wider range of investment and trading activities than long-only investment funds, and that, in general, pays a performance fee to its investment manager. Every hedge fund has its own investment strategy that determines the type of investments and the methods of investment it undertakes.

Fibonacci numbers are a sequence of numbers where each successive number is the sum of the two previous numbers. These numbers play an important role in determining relative areas where the prices of financial assets experience large price moves or change direction. The four popular Fibonacci studies are arcs, fans, retracements and time zones.

The Donchian channel is an indicator used in market trading developed by Richard Donchian. It is formed by taking the highest high of the daily maxima and the lowest low of the daily minima of the last n days, then marking the area between those values on a chart.

A pattern on bar charts resembling a cup with a handle. The cup is in the shape of a "U" and the handle has a slight downward drift. The right-hand side of the pattern has low trading volume. It can be as short as seven weeks and as long as 65 weeks.

A market maker is a company, or an individual, that quotes both a buy and a sell price in a financial instrument or commodity held in inventory, hoping to make a profit on the bid/offer spread, or turn.

An action taken by a firm's majority shareholders that pressures minority holders to sell their stakes in the company. A variety of maneuvers may be considered freeze-out tactics, such as the termination of minority shareholder employees or the refusal to declare dividends. Also referred to as a "squeeze out".

These actions are often illegal and may be overturned by the courts.

The ask price is the lowest price a seller of a stock is willing to accept for a share of that given stock. For over-the-counter stocks, the asking price is the best quoted price at which a Market Maker is willing to sell a stock.

Free riding (also known as Freeriding or Free-riding) is a term used to describe the practice of buying shares or other securities without actually having the capital to cover the trade. This is possible when recently bought or sold shares are unsettled, and therefore have not been paid for.

Also known as the "December Effect," it is a surge in the price of stocks that often occurs in the week between Christmas and New Year's Day. There are numerous explanations for the Santa Claus Rally phenomenon, including tax considerations, happiness around Wall Street, people investing their Christmas bonuses and the fact that the pessimists are usually on vacation this week.

A breakout is the point at which the market price breaks away or moves out of a trading range or pattern. A breakout is when prices pass through, and stay through an area of support or resistance.

A nationally recognized, well-established and financially sound company. Blue chips generally sell high-quality, widely accepted products and services. Blue-chip companies are known to weather downturns and operate profitably in the face of adverse economic conditions, which helps to contribute to their long record of stable and reliable growth.

No. If you try to sell more shares than people are willing to buy or if your price is unreasonable, it may take a long time for them to sell, if at all. However, if you use market orders on medium or high volume stocks you should not have any problems selling them immediately.

Options on stock indexes are similar to exchange-traded funds (ETF's), the difference being that ETF's values change throughout the day whereas the value on stock index options change at the end of each trading day. Therefore, profit/loss on an index option is based on the market's closing price for the day, not on any price during the market's open hours.

In accounting, book value or carrying value is the value of an asset according to its balance sheet account balance. For assets, the value is based on the original cost of the asset less any depreciation, amortization or impairment costs made against the asset. Traditionally, a company's book value is its total assets minus intangible assets and liabilities.

The Efficient Frontier is part of the Modern Portfolio Theory (MPT) that attempts to plots the optimal portfolios along the curve with the highest expected return possible for the given amount of risk. Mathematically the Efficient Frontier is the intersection of the Set of Portfolios with Minimum Variance (MVS) and the Set of Portfolios with Maximum Return.