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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Q
Quantity
The amount of a product being bought or sold in a transaction, more commonly known as a lot.
Quantity Theory of Credit
An alternative to the older quantity theory of money, most closely associated with the economist Richard Werner. Its central claim is that what really drives the economy is not the total money supply but the creation and, crucially, the allocation of credit by banks. Werner splits credit into two kinds. Productive credit funds investment and output, the things that actually raise GDP.
Unproductive credit flows into financial speculation and asset purchases that do not add to production. The theory suggests that when banks pump credit into assets rather than the real economy, the result is not growth but bubbles: prices of houses or shares balloon while GDP barely moves, setting up the crash for when the credit reverses.
Example: In the years before the 2008 crisis, a flood of bank lending poured into mortgages and property rather than productive business investment, and a follower of this theory would argue that this misallocation, not the raw quantity of money, contributed to the housing bubble and may have contributed to the severity of the subsequent financial and economic downturn
Quantity Theory of Money
One of the oldest ideas in economics, the quantity theory of money links the amount of money in an economy directly to the level of prices. In its classic form it is written as an identity, MV equals PT, where money multiplied by the velocity at which it circulates equals the price level multiplied by the volume of transactions. Hold velocity and output roughly steady, and the conclusion follows: increase the money supply and prices rise more or less in proportion.
It is the intellectual backbone of monetarism, the school associated with Milton Friedman and his famous line that inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon. Critics counter that velocity is not actually stable, which weakens the neat proportionality in the short run.
Example: A government that expands the money supply rapidly to cover its spending, as in various hyperinflations from Weimar Germany to modern Zimbabwe, tends to see prices explode, the kind of episode that supporters of the quantity theory point to as the mechanism working as predicted by the theory.
Quanto option
An option that has been adjusted to account for currency exchange rate movements.
Quarterly CFDS
Quarterly CFDs are contracts for difference that carry a fixed expiry date each quarter, typically in March, June, September, and December, rather than rolling over every single night the way standard cash CFDs do. They are usually priced off the underlying futures contract, which is why the quoted price can sit a little away from the current spot level. The trade-off is really about financing. A daily CFD charges or credits an overnight financing adjustment for every night you hold it, which quietly adds up on a longer position; a quarterly CFD generally incorporates financing costs into its price, so there is no nightly swap to track.
That makes them a potential choice for traders who want to hold a directional view on an index or commodity for weeks or months.
Example: A trader who expects an equity index to climb over the next two months opts for a quarterly CFD rather than the cash version, accepting a wider spread in exchange for no daily overnight financing adjustment on a position held that long.
Quarterly Funding Announcement (QRA)
The Quarterly Refunding Announcement, usually shortened to QRA, is the US Treasury’s regular statement of how much debt it plans to issue over the coming quarter and in what form. Released in February, May, August, and November, it lays out the expected size of upcoming auctions and, just as importantly, the mix between short-term Treasury bills and longer-dated notes and bonds. That composition is what markets fixate on.
Leaning on bills may ease pressure at the long end, while heavier coupon issuance can push long-term yields higher by increasing the supply of longer-dated debt. The announcement follows consultation with the Treasury Borrowing Advisory Committee, a panel of market participants. Once a relatively low-profile technical release, the QRA has become a genuine market event in an era of large deficits.
Example: In 2023, several refunding announcements influenced Treasury markets, as investors parsed whether the Treasury would fund swelling deficits with more bills or more long-dated bonds, and adjusted their yield expectations depending on exactly where the extra supply was set to land.
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