Robinhood glossary

ADRs (American Depositary Receipts) make it easier for American investors to buy shares of foreign companies not listed on U.S. exchanges like the NYSE or Nasdaq. Owning an ADR is like owning a share of the company, except the shares of the ADR are denominated in American dollars instead of the currency of the company’s home country. These shares still pay dividends and are still subject to taxes. Check out the assets available on Robinhood UK for more information.

Buying power is the amount of money you can use to purchase stocks.

A corporate action is any activity a company takes that results in a significant change to the company's stock. Learn more about the different types of corporate actions and how they affect your brokerage account in Mergers, stock splits, and more.

A stock is delisted when it’s been removed from the stock exchange. You can’t trade delisted stocks with Robinhood UK. You can learn more about what to do if you own a delisted stock in Mergers, stock splits, and more.

Robinhood UK customers have access to extended-hours trading, which means you get more time to trade with us. Check out Extended-hours trading for details.

Robinhood Securities, LLC is regulated in the US by the SEC and FINRA. Robinhood UK and Robinhood Securities, LLC are subsidiaries of Robinhood Markets, Inc. Robinhood Securities, LLC is a member of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, Inc. (FINRA), a self-regulatory organisation that promotes honesty and fairness in the broker-dealer industry.

This refers to the way Robinhood UK calculates your cost basis. When you sell stocks, we record the cost you paid for your positions in the order you bought them. You can view your average cost basis for a stock you own on the stock’s detail page.

If a company executes a forward stock split, it’s increasing the number of shares outstanding without changing the total market value of the shares. There will be more shares in the market, but each share will be worth less than it previously was. Check out Mergers, stock splits, and more to learn more.

A fractional share is a piece of one whole share of stock. Since Robinhood UK offers fractional shares, you can trade stocks in pieces of shares, in addition to trading in whole share increments. Check out Fractional shares to learn more.

Good-til-cancelled refers to a type of order you can place. A GTC order will remain open until you cancel it, it’s filled, or if the stock undergoes a corporate action and all open trades are cancelled. At Robinhood UK, a GTC order will expire after 90 calendar days.

Good-for-day refers to a type of order you can place. A GFD order will remain open until market close on the day you place it (if it doesn’t execute before the close). Check out Order types for more details.

Volatility is a measure of how dramatically the value of a stock changes in a given period. Highly volatile stocks are considered riskier investments, and regulations inform how much money you can borrow to invest in these stocks.

An initial public offering (IPO) is the process of raising capital by offering shares of the company to the public for the very first time.

The last sale price of a stock is the most recent price at which a trade was executed in the market. We use Nasdaq’s last sale price for the market prices we display in the app.

A limit order allows you to choose the price you’d like to pay or sell an asset for, so that if the asset rises or falls within that range it’ll get executed at that price or better.

For example, if ABC is trading at $10, you can place a limit buy order at $9, which will execute when ABC is offered at $9 or lower in the market. The same is true for limit sell orders: you can specify the minimum amount you’re willing to receive when you sell your asset.

Check out Limit order to learn more.

A low-priced stock, also known as penny stock, generally refers to a stock issued by a company that’s valued at less than $5 per share.

A stock has low volume if there aren’t very many people trading it in the market. The prices for these stocks can change dramatically because each individual trader can have an outsized influence on the price of the stock. This makes them inherently more risky.

Buying stocks on margin means that you’ve borrowed money from your brokerage to fund your purchase. Check out Investing with margin for details.

The margin maintenance requirement is the minimum portfolio value you can have before you’re at risk of getting a margin call. Check out What’s margin maintenance to learn more about avoiding margin calls.

A margin call is warning that your portfolio value is below your margin maintenance requirement. If you get a margin call, we may sell some of your stocks in order to bring your maintenance requirement down and your portfolio value up. Check out What’s margin maintenance to learn more about avoiding margin calls.

The stock market opens for trading at 9:30 AM ET and closes at 4 PM ET (US Eastern Time) during normal trading sessions. Check out Extended-hours trading for more details on trading outside of regular market hours.

A market order is an order that will execute at the next price in the market. Be careful, though, because stocks that are highly volatile can change price quickly, and the price you get can be different from the current price when submitting a market order. Check out Market order to learn more.

If 2 companies merge, there are almost always significant implications for the shareholders of both companies. Typically, the acquiring company will choose to liquidate the shares of the acquired company for cash or give out shares of their own company to shareholders of the acquired company. Check out Mergers, stock splits, and more to learn more.

Nasdaq, like NYSE, is a stock exchange where buyers and sellers can trade stocks. A notable difference between them is that Nasdaq has no physical location because it’s an entirely electronic trading network. A Nasdaq exchange (the Nasdaq Stock Market, NASDAQ OMX BX, or NASDAQ OMX PHLX) is also an important index for American technology stocks.

The New York Stock Exchange, known as NYSE, is the biggest stock exchange in the world.

A partial execution occurs when only some of your order is filled. Before an order can execute, a buyer and seller must be on both sides of the trade. If the market doesn’t have enough shares at your limit price, it may take multiple trades to fill the entire order. These most commonly occur with limit orders placed on low-volume stocks.

Your brokerage account might get a Regulation T call, sometimes referred to as a Reg-T call, if your account doesn’t meet the initial margin requirement for stocks you’ve purchased. Check out Account restrictions for more information on how this type of call can affect your account.

If a company executes a reverse stock split, it’s decreasing the number of shares outstanding without changing the overall market value of the company. There will be fewer shares in the market, but each share will be worth more than it previously was. Check out Mergers, stock splits, and more to learn more.

Say Technologies LLC provides investor communications including proxy notices to Robinhood customers and allows them to submit their votes at saytechnologies.com. Check out Shareholder meetings and elections to learn more.

Settlement is the time it takes stocks or cash to move from one brokerage account to the next. The normal stocks and cash settlement time is the trade date (T) +2 business days, commonly referred to as T +2. However, starting May 28, 2024, the settlement time will be T +1 business day.

A company’s board may decide to create a new subsidiary of their company. If they also award shareholders of the parent company shares of the new company, they’ve executed a spinoff. Check out Mergers, stock splits, and more to learn more.

A company’s board can decide to execute a stock split if they want to increase or decrease the number of shares they have outstanding. Companies can execute a forward or reverse stock split. Check out Mergers, stock splits, and more to learn more.

Stock transfer allows you to transfer shares of stock from other brokerages into your Robinhood UK brokerage account and vice versa.

When a stock hits your stop price, the stop order becomes a market order and is executed at the best price currently available. Check out Stop order to learn more.

A stop order is an order type that triggers a market order to buy or sell when the stock reaches your designated stop price.

Similar to a stop order, a stop limit order allows you to set a stop price. The difference is that a stop limit order will trigger a specified limit order when the stock reaches your stop price. You can use this type of order to set parameters around the price your trade will execute at once the stop is triggered, but there’s a risk that the order won’t execute if the stock price moves past your limit.

To indicate how long your market, limit, or stop order will remain active, you can set a time-in-force. The time-in-force options include Good-for-day (GFD) and Good-til-cancelled (GTC).

You can set a trail when placing a trailing stop order. A trail is the amount at which the trailing stop price follows behind the best price of a stock. You can set your trail either as a fixed dollar amount or percentage. Check out Trailing stop order for details.

https://robinhood.com/gb/en/support/articles/twofactor-authentication/Two-factor authentication (2FA) is a tool that allows you to add another layer of security to your account.

If a stock is untradeable on Robinhood UK, you won’t be able to buy or sell shares of it. You can learn more about why a stock may be untradeable in Mergers, stock splits, and more.

If you sell a stock for a loss, and then buy the same stock or a similar stock within 30 calendar days, you’ve executed a wash sale. The IRS prohibits taxpayers from claiming losses from wash sales for tax purposes.