The swing trading glossary — every term the desk uses, in plain English.
These are the working definitions behind the published record and the weekly setups — measurement terms first (they make a record auditable), then the desk's own vocabulary, then risk. Each entry links to the guide that goes deeper.
A trade's result expressed as a multiple of the risk planned for it. Risk $200, make $400: that's +2R. Hit the stop: −1R. R makes a $500 account and a $500,000 account comparable, and it's the unit the entire published record is kept in. Full walkthrough: what is an R-multiple?
Risk-reward ratio (R:R)
The ratio a setup offers before entry: distance to target over distance to stop. A plan entering at 100 with a stop at 95 and target at 110 offers 2:1. Distinguish this from the realised R-multiple — what actually happened.
Expectancy
The average R a system earns per trade: (win% × avg win) − (loss% × avg loss). It is the whole game in one line — a 53% win rate with +1.84R average winners and −0.91R average losers expects about +0.55R per trade, which compounds. A 53% win rate with big losers can still expect a negative number.
Profit factor
Gross profit ÷ gross loss. Above 1.0 the record makes money; near 2.0 the winners are decisively outworking the losers. It's harder to flatter than win rate, because one uncapped loss drags it hard — which is why it pairs naturally with a −1R loss cap.
Win rate
Percentage of closed trades that made money. On its own it's the most misleading statistic in trading — sellable, but meaningless without the size of the average winner and loser next to it.
Drawdown
The fall from an equity peak to the following trough. Personal accounts survive drawdowns; prop firm accounts often don't — most funded programmes enforce a hard daily and overall limit, and a breach ends the account regardless of what happens next.
The desk's vocabulary
Buy zone
The area within roughly one weekly ATR of the 200-week EMA, considered for long-term accumulation only while the 50-week EMA holds above the 200-week (structure intact). Proximity is measured in each asset's own volatility, so "close to the line" means the same thing on a calm fund and a violent growth stock. The 200-week strategy guide covers the full method.
200-week EMA
An exponential moving average over ~four years of weekly closes — a slow line price rarely visits. In long-term uptrends it has repeatedly marked the area where deep pullbacks exhausted. The Trade Desk's Portfolio Builder tracks hundreds of assets by their distance to it.
8/21 EMA stack
The short-term trend read on daily charts: the 8-period EMA above the 21 says momentum is with the longs; crossing back through it is often the first exit warning. Used for swing entries, not investing decisions.
DeMarker (DeM 14)
A 0–1 bounded oscillator built from the last 14 periods' highs and lows. Below 0.30 = washed out — sellers exhausted, the zone-touch more likely to hold. Above 0.70 = stretched. The desk reads it weekly for accumulation and daily for swings; the DeMarker guide has the maths and the settings.
Short squeeze
A rally that feeds on itself as short sellers are forced to buy back stock to cap their losses. Candidates need crowding (high short interest), a reason to move, and a technical trigger — the squeeze guide shows the screen the desk runs.
Short interest / float
The float is the stock actually available to trade; short interest is the fraction of it currently sold short. Twenty percent-plus of the float short is crowded — kindling for a squeeze, not proof of one.
The three entry rules every desk setup carries. Break-above fires the moment price trades through the level intraday — fastest, most exposed to fakeouts. Close-above waits for the bar to close beyond it — later entry, far fewer traps; the desk's default for daily setups. Pullback buys a retrace into a chosen level — weakness within strength, instead of chasing. Which one a setup uses is stated up front, because it changes what "triggered" means.
Risk-on / risk-off
A one-line regime read of how aggressive the tape rewards being: risk-on favours breakouts and growth names, risk-off favours patience and smaller size. The dashboard states its read every week rather than leaving it implied.
Risk & sizing
The 1% rule
Risk no more than 1% of the account on any single trade. Size from the stop: position = (account × 1%) ÷ (entry − stop). It's the arithmetic that turns a −1R loss into a survivable 1% dent — a free position size calculator does it in seconds.
Stop-loss
The exit decided before entry, placed as a real order at the level where the trade idea is wrong. Everything about capping losses at −1R depends on the stop being honoured — the stop-loss guide covers placement, and every loss, published shows 79 trades of the result.
Take-profit / partials
The pre-planned exit on the winning side. The desk's default is scaling: bank part of the position around +2R, let the remainder run behind a trailing stop — paying the discipline bill while keeping the right tail open.
Prop firm
A funding company that stakes traders with firm capital after an evaluation, in exchange for a profit split — and enforces hard drawdown limits. Prop rules are why loss containment matters more for funded traders than for anyone else: one uncapped loser can end the account outright.
The −1R cap
The standing rule that no losing trade may cost more than the risk planned for it. Not a promise of fewer losses — a decision about what each one is allowed to cost. In 78 published trades the worst loss on this desk's record is −1.01R: the full list is public.
See the vocabulary in use — this Sunday
Every weekly setup is published with its trigger type, stop, target and R:R stated before the open. The terms above aren't theory here; they're the format.