Disclaimer: CFDs are complex instruments and come with a high risk of losing money rapidly due to leverage.
You should consider whether you understand how CFDs work and whether you can afford to take the high risk of losing your money.
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Historical pricing
The record of buying and selling prices of a product, aiding analysts and investors in assessing its potential performance.
Historical volatility
A measure of the variability of a security’s price over a specific period of time, based on past price movements.
HK50/HKHI
Shorthand text used by common brokers and platforms to identify the Hang Seng Index (HSI), Hong Kong’s main equity index. There are approximately 50 companies in the index, so its symbol is HK50, and its Reuters instrument code is similar to the HKHI. Both labels are used for the same underlying: the futures contract for the Hang Seng Index or a CFD based upon it.
The index covers Hong Kong Stock Exchange’s top and most active entities in the property, consumer, technology and financial services industries. Its weight in Chinese technology and financial companies makes HK50/HKHI very sensitive to Chinese regulatory developments, geopolitical sentiment in U.S.-China relations, and the mainland economy.
The greatest amount of trading occurs in Hong Kong trading hours. Large gap risk can be found when the market is closed during large China or global macro events.
Example: A trader who is bullish on technology has opted to trade the Chinese technology sector via the HK50 CFD rather than individual stocks listed in Hong Kong. The HK50 gaps up at the open when China says it’s supportive of tech. The tech weighting in the index means that one tech policy change equals a measurable change in the hands of the long side.
HODL
An intentional misspelling of “hold” that became cryptocurrency’s most long-lasting slang, originating from an early Bitcoin forum post in which an investor declared he was “hodling” through a sharp price drop. The community embraced it with love, and it then adopted the backronym: Hold On for Dear Life.
HODLing is a conviction-based holding strategy through severe price declines, volatility cycles, and bear markets, with a belief in the long-term trajectory up, despite short-term noise. This is the crypto version of buy-and-hold equity investing, but with a more volatile asset class and less fundamental backing.
HODLing is a real test of mental strength. It is not uncommon to see drawdowns of 70-90% in crypto bear markets, and there is a real risk of permanent loss of capital if you hold through them and the asset never recovers.
Example: An investor who bought bitcoin near a bull market top watches as the price drops more than 70% in the following year. They don’t sell at a loss, they HODL. No checking the price every day, still HODLing. The position then recovers and goes beyond the original entry in the next cycle. The same conviction applied to assets that never did rebound would have led to permanent loss, not vindication.
Hold Time
The length of time a trading position is held from the entry to the exit. Hold time varies enormously by style. Scalpers hold seconds, day traders minutes to hours, swing traders days to weeks, position traders months to years. Average hold time is an important factor in the evaluation of strategy, choice of platform and analysis of costs.
In short, you need quick execution, tight spreads and low commissions as small transaction costs really add up over hundreds of trades a day. Long hold times mean significant overnight funding costs if you’re holding positions for weeks or months: swap rates on CFDs and leveraged products accrue on a daily basis, eating into your returns.
Hold time also affects the reliability of backtesting. Very short hold times are sensitive to assumptions about execution quality. Longer hold times are more exposed to structural market regime changes over the holding period.
Example: A day trader and a swing trader go long the same equity at the same price. The day trader grabs the 1% gain in the session and closes out the position, avoiding overnight risk altogether. The swing trader has a week to get a 5% move, pay swap charges on the leveraged position and take open gap risk from news breaking while the market is closed. Same direction, very different cost and risk profiles.
Holder
The owner of a security, such as a stock or bond.
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