Trading Glossary: 51 Terms Every Indian Intraday Trader Should Know
A short reference for the terms that show up constantly across intraday, options and F&O trading on the NSE. Bookmark this page and come back whenever a word in an article or on the order screen doesn't click immediately.
MIS (Margin Intraday Square-off)
An order product for trades you plan to close the same day. The position is auto-squared-off by the system before market close, and usually comes with extra leverage since the broker knows you won't hold it overnight.
CNC (Cash and Carry)
The delivery product for equity. You pay the full amount, take ownership of the shares, and there is no forced exit. Used for investing rather than day trading.
NRML (Normal)
The product used for F&O positions you intend to carry beyond the current day, subject to margin and the contract's own expiry rules.
Lot size
The fixed number of units an F&O contract represents. You cannot trade a single unit of an index option, only whole lots, so every rupee of premium movement is multiplied by the lot size.
Strike price
The price level at which an option contract gives its buyer the right to buy (call) or sell (put) the underlying.
Premium
The price of an option, what a buyer pays and a seller receives, per unit, though it always trades in whole lots.
CE / PE
CE means a call option, PE means a put option, the two halves of every row in an option chain.
ATM (At the Money)
The strike price closest to the current price of the underlying.
ITM (In the Money)
A strike that already has intrinsic value: a call strike below the current price, or a put strike above it.
OTM (Out of the Money)
A strike with no intrinsic value yet: a call strike above the current price, or a put strike below it.
Intrinsic value
The value an option would have if exercised right now, based purely on where the underlying price sits relative to the strike.
Time value
The part of an option's premium above its intrinsic value, reflecting the chance it could move further in the money before expiry.
Open Interest (OI)
The total number of option or futures contracts at a strike that are currently open, not yet closed out. Rising OI means new positions are being added.
Volume
The number of contracts traded today at a given strike, which can be high even if Open Interest barely changes.
Implied Volatility (IV)
The market's estimate, expressed as an annualised percentage, of how much the underlying is expected to move. Higher IV makes options more expensive.
Delta
A Greek that estimates how much an option's premium moves for a one-point move in the underlying, and roughly the probability of expiring in the money.
Gamma
A Greek that measures how fast Delta itself changes as the underlying moves. Highest for options near the money close to expiry.
Theta
A Greek measuring how much premium an option loses per day purely from time passing, holding everything else constant. Works against option buyers and for option sellers.
Vega
A Greek measuring how much an option's premium changes for a change in implied volatility.
Put-Call Ratio (PCR)
Total put Open Interest divided by total call Open Interest for an expiry, used as a rough sentiment gauge, high PCR often read as bullish, low PCR as bearish.
Max Pain
The strike price at which option writers as a group would lose the least money at expiry. Price often drifts toward it near expiry, though it is a tendency, not a rule.
Margin
The capital a broker or exchange requires you to keep aside to cover potential losses on a leveraged or short position.
Assignment
What happens when a sold option finishes in the money at expiry and the seller is required to settle it, in cash for index options or via delivery obligations for stock options.
Square-off
Closing an open position, either manually or automatically at a cutoff time for intraday products.
Auto square-off
The system-driven, forced closing of an MIS or intraday position before market close, regardless of profit or loss.
Expiry
The date on which an options or futures contract stops trading and is settled. Weekly for many index options, monthly for stock F&O.
Rollover
Closing a futures or options position near expiry and opening a similar one in the next expiry, to keep a view running without letting the contract expire.
STT (Securities Transaction Tax)
A government tax charged automatically on every trade executed on a recognised exchange, at rates that differ between intraday, delivery and F&O trades.
Stamp duty
A small state government charge on the transfer of securities, applied only on the buy side of a trade.
Exchange transaction charge
A small fee the exchange (NSE) charges for matching and executing your trade.
SEBI turnover fee
A very small regulatory fee charged by SEBI on every trade's turnover, currently ₹10 per crore.
Brokerage
The fee a broker charges for executing your order, often a flat amount or a small percentage of turnover, capped per order for intraday and F&O trades.
DP (Depository Participant) charge
A flat fee of roughly ₹15-20, charged once per stock sold per day regardless of quantity, when you sell shares out of a delivery (demat) holding. It does not apply to intraday trades or to buying.
GST
An 18% tax applied on brokerage, exchange transaction charges and the SEBI fee, but not on STT or stamp duty since those are already taxes.
Slippage
The difference between the price you expected an order to fill at and the price it actually filled at, common in fast-moving or less liquid stocks.
Stop-loss (SL)
An order that triggers a limit order at a set price once the market touches your trigger, guaranteeing a price but not necessarily a fill.
Stop-loss market (SL-M)
A stop-loss order that triggers a market order once the trigger price is touched, guaranteeing an exit but not the exact price.
Trailing stop-loss
A stop-loss that automatically moves in the direction of profit as a trade moves in your favour, locking in gains without capping further upside.
Bracket order
An order that bundles an entry, a target and a stop-loss into a single order placed upfront, so the position manages its own exit once the entry fills.
GTT (Good Till Triggered)
An order that stays pending, sometimes for up to a year, until the market reaches a price you set, useful for levels you want to act on without watching the screen.
OCO (One Cancels Other)
A pair of orders where the execution of one automatically cancels the other, commonly used to set both a target and a stop-loss at once.
VWAP (Volume Weighted Average Price)
The average price a stock has traded at through the day, weighted by volume, often used as a reference for whether the current price is relatively expensive or cheap intraday.
RSI (Relative Strength Index)
A momentum indicator, scaled 0 to 100, commonly used to flag when a stock looks overbought (high RSI) or oversold (low RSI).
MACD (Moving Average Convergence Divergence)
A trend and momentum indicator built from the relationship between two moving averages, used to spot potential shifts in direction.
Bollinger Bands
Bands plotted above and below a moving average based on volatility, used to gauge whether a price move is unusually large relative to its recent range.
Support
A price level where a stock has tended to stop falling and bounce, often because buyers have historically stepped in there.
Resistance
A price level where a stock has tended to stop rising and reverse, often because sellers have historically stepped in there.
Circuit limit
The maximum percentage a stock is allowed to move up (upper circuit) or down (lower circuit) in a session before trading in it is paused, to control extreme volatility.
Drawdown
The decline from a peak in account value to a subsequent low, used to measure how much an account has given back during a losing stretch.
Win rate
The percentage of trades that were closed profitably out of total trades taken, one of the most basic measures of trading performance.
Position sizing
Deciding how many shares or lots to trade based on how much you are willing to risk and where your stop-loss sits, rather than an arbitrary quantity.
That's 51. If a term you've seen on an order screen or in a guide isn't here, most of it gets explained in more depth across the other Learn guides.