Trading glossary

Iceberg Order Iceberg Order Definition: An iceberg order is a large limit order that displays only a small portion of the total quantity in the public order book, with the remainder hidden until the visible port... Ichimoku Cloud Ichimoku Cloud Definition: The Ichimoku Cloud (Ichimoku Kinko Hyo) is a comprehensive technical analysis system developed by Japanese journalist Goichi Hosoda in the late 1930s and published in 196... Illiquidity Definition Illiquidity Definition: Illiquidity is the condition of an asset or market where positions cannot be quickly converted to cash at a fair price — either because buyers are scarce, the bid-ask spread... IMF IMF Definition: The IMF, or International Monetary Fund, is an international organisation that lends foreign currency to member countries that can no longer pay for imports or service their externa... Immediate or Cancel (IOC) Immediate or Cancel (IOC) Definition: An Immediate or Cancel order is a time-in-force instruction that executes any portion of the order matching at the specified price immediately, then cancels an... Immutability Immutability Definition: Immutability in blockchain refers to the property that once data — a transaction, a smart contract deployment, a block — has been confirmed and added to the chain, it canno... Impermanent Loss Impermanent Loss Definition: Impermanent loss is the difference in value between holding two tokens in a decentralised exchange liquidity pool and simply holding the same tokens in a wallet, when t... Implied Volatility (IV) Implied Volatility (IV) Definition: Implied Volatility is the market's forward-looking estimate of expected price movement derived from options premiums — solving the Black-Scholes pricing model ba... In the Money (ITM) In the Money (ITM) Definition: An option is In the Money (ITM) when exercising would result in a positive payoff — for a call option, the underlying spot price exceeds the strike price; for a put o... Income Income Definition: Income is money received by an individual, business, or government over a period of time from productive activity, investments, or transfers — representing inflows that can be co... Index Fund Index Fund Definition: An index fund is an investment fund that buys every security in a market index, such as the S&P 500, in the same proportions as the index itself. Because the fund copies a pu... Indirect Finance Indirect Finance Definition: Indirect finance is a method of funding in which capital flows from savers to borrowers through a financial intermediary — typically a bank — rather than directly throu... Inflation Inflation Definition: Inflation is the rate at which the general price level of goods and services in an economy rises over time, reducing the purchasing power of money — each unit of currency buys... Initial Coin Offering (ICO) Initial Coin Offering (ICO) Definition: An Initial Coin Offering (ICO) is a fundraising method in which a blockchain project sells newly created tokens to investors in exchange for established cryp... Initial DEX Offering (IDO) Initial DEX Offering (IDO) Definition: An Initial DEX Offering (IDO) is a cryptocurrency fundraising method where tokens are launched and initially sold on decentralized exchanges (DEXes) such as U... Initial Exchange Offering (IEO) Initial Exchange Offering (IEO) Definition: An Initial Exchange Offering (IEO) is a token fundraising method where a cryptocurrency exchange acts as the platform and intermediary for the token sale... Initial Public Offering (IPO) Initial Public Offering (IPO) Definition: An Initial Public Offering (IPO) is the process by which a privately held company sells shares to the public for the first time, listing those shares on a ... Injective (INJ) Injective (INJ) Definition: Injective is a layer-1 blockchain built with the Cosmos SDK for trading and other financial applications, with an order book, derivatives engine and protection against f... Inscription Inscription Definition: An inscription is arbitrary digital content — an image, text, code, audio, or any other data — written directly into the witness portion of a Bitcoin transaction and permane... Institutional Investor Institutional Investor Definition: An Institutional Investor is an organization that pools and invests large amounts of capital on behalf of others — including pension funds, mutual funds, hedge fu... Interbank Market Interbank Market Definition: The interbank market is the wholesale network in which large banks trade currencies and lend short-term funds directly to each other, without a central exchange. It set... Interest Rate Interest Rate Definition: An interest rate is the price of borrowing money, expressed as a percentage of the amount borrowed per year. A $10,000 loan at 5% costs the borrower $500 in interest over ... Interest Rate Differential Interest Rate Differential Definition: An interest rate differential is the difference between the interest rates of two currencies, for example a 5% US rate against a 1% Japanese rate gives a diff... Interest Rate Hike Interest Rate Hike Definition: An Interest Rate Hike is an increase in benchmark interest rates by a central bank — primarily the Federal Reserve setting the Fed Funds Rate — used to combat inflati... Interest Rate Risk Interest Rate Risk Definition: Interest rate risk is the potential for investment losses caused by changes in interest rates — specifically, the inverse relationship between interest rates and the ... Interest Rate Swap Interest Rate Swap Definition: An interest rate swap is a contract in which one party pays a fixed interest rate and the other pays a floating rate, both calculated on the same notional amount in t... Internal Financing Internal Financing Definition: Internal financing is the use of a company's own generated funds — retained earnings, depreciation, and cash flow from operations — to fund new investments, expansion... Internet Computer (ICP) Internet Computer Definition: Internet Computer (ICP) is a blockchain created by the DFINITY Foundation aiming to enable decentralized hosting of the entire internet — replacing data centers with b... Interoperability Interoperability Definition: Interoperability is the ability of different blockchain networks to communicate, share data, and transfer value between each other without relying on third-party interm... Inverse Head and Shoulders Inverse Head and Shoulders Definition: The Inverse Head and Shoulders is a bullish reversal chart pattern consisting of three troughs at the bottom of a downtrend — a left shoulder, a lower central... Inverted Yield Curve Inverted Yield Curve Definition: An inverted yield curve is a situation in which short-term government bonds pay higher yields than long-term bonds of the same issuer, reversing the normal upward s... Investment Fund Investment Fund Definition: An investment fund is a pooled vehicle that collects capital from multiple investors and deploys it according to a defined investment strategy, managed by professional f... Investment Strategy Investment Strategy Definition: An investment strategy is a systematic plan that defines how capital will be deployed — specifying which assets to buy or sell, under what conditions, with what posi... IOU “I owe you” IOU Definition: An IOU (from the spoken phrase "I owe you") is an informal acknowledgment of debt — a document or record indicating that one party owes a specific amount to another, without the leg... IPFS IPFS Definition: IPFS, the InterPlanetary File System, is a peer-to-peer protocol for storing and sharing files, in which each file is found by a content identifier (CID) derived from a hash of its... Iron Condor Iron Condor Definition: An Iron Condor is a four-leg options strategy combining a short strangle (sell OTM call + sell OTM put) with a long strangle further OTM (long OTM call + long OTM put) — cre... Isolated Margin Isolated Margin Definition: Isolated margin is a position management mode in leveraged trading where the margin allocated to a specific position is capped at a pre-set amount — if the position is l...