Glossary

The share of stocks trading above their 200-day average — long-term participation. Above ~65% is a broad advance; below ~20% is washout territory, historically closer to bottoms than to new downtrends.

Price versus its 200-week (≈4-year) moving average, pulled to the historical norm. The 200-week average has marked major cycle floors in Bitcoin and long-cycle value zones in equities.

When large passive orders soak up aggressive selling or buying without price moving — a sign that strong hands are accumulating or distributing.

A running total of advancing minus declining stocks each day. Healthy markets see it make new highs WITH the index; the index rising while the A/D line falls is a classic topping warning.

A VWAP started from a specific significant event (a high, low, or news date) rather than the session open, used to gauge positioning relative to that event.

A rare buy signal: breadth swinging from washed-out (under 40% of stocks advancing) to overwhelming (over 61.5%) within ten sessions. Historically one of the most reliable bull-market ignition signals.

The recurring expansion-to-recession arc of the economy — early, mid, late, recession — that sets which asset classes have a structural tailwind.

The strikes carrying the most dealer gamma. Call walls act as resistance and pin magnets in calm tapes; put walls act as support until they break — then hedging flow accelerates the drop.

Price divided by the average of ten years of inflation-adjusted earnings — a valuation lens that smooths the earnings cycle. High CAPE predicts low LONG-RUN returns; it says nothing about next quarter.

A single number summarising a panel of independent models — MarketDrip uses the average of active models (with the median as an outlier-proof cross-check). Toggling models changes the composite: that's a feature, not a bug.

When multiple independent signals point the same way. The MTS edge comes from confluence across the three pillars, not from any single indicator.

MarketDrip's ranked level list: every level source (volume profile, anchored VWAPs, swings, options walls, prior periods) clustered and scored by how many independent methods agree at the same price.

How closely two assets move together, from −1 (opposite) to +1 (identical). It measures direction agreement only — two assets can be perfectly correlated while one moves ten times as much.

A large change in how two assets co-move (e.g. stocks and bonds flipping from negative to positive correlation, as in 2022). The shift itself is a signal — hedges built on the old relationship stop working.

The CFTC's weekly Commitments of Traders report, breaking futures positioning into commercials (hedgers), large speculators (funds) and small traders (retail).

The extra yield investors demand to hold corporate debt over Treasuries. Widening spreads signal rising default risk and falling risk appetite.

The aggregate options hedging exposure of dealers. Positive gamma dampens volatility (price pinned); negative gamma amplifies it (price chases).

An asset with low average correlation to the rest of a portfolio — the thing actually adding balance. Measured over recent data, not assumed from a textbook: diversifiers change as regimes change.

Comparing an index where every stock counts equally (RSP) against the normal cap-weighted version (SPY). Equal-weight lagging means mega-caps are carrying the tape and the average stock is weaker than the index looks.

The extra return stocks must offer over safe bonds to be worth their risk — earnings yield minus the 10-year yield. A thin ERP means you're barely being paid to take equity risk.

The options market's own forecast of how far an asset should travel by a given expiry, read from the at-the-money straddle price. Levels inside the weekly expected move are 'in play' this week.

What an asset 'should' be worth under a stated model. No single model is right; a panel of independent models with a composite is harder to fool — and the dispersion between them is itself information.

Compares the stock market's earnings yield (earnings ÷ price) with the 10-year Treasury yield. Famous and flawed — it implies infinite value at zero rates — but useful as a rates-sensitivity bound.

How easy or hard it is to raise money and take risk — a composite of rates, credit spreads, the dollar, volatility and equity prices. Loose conditions fuel risk assets; tightening chokes them.

The periodic payment between long and short holders of a crypto perpetual future. Positive funding means longs pay shorts — a crowded-long, squeeze-prone signal.

The price level where dealers' net options hedging switches from stabilising (fading moves) to destabilising (chasing them). Crossing it intraday often marks the moment a quiet session turns fast.

Prices where unusually much (HVN) or little (LVN) volume traded. HVNs act as support and resistance because positions live there; LVNs are travelled FAST because the auction never built inventory there.

The four rotation quadrants. Buy candidates live in Improving (strength turning up before the crowd notices); take profits as Leading rolls into Weakening; avoid Lagging until its momentum turns north.

How many stocks are participating in an index move. An index carried by five mega-caps while the average stock falls is narrow breadth — the signature of late-stage rallies.

The sequence of swing points: higher highs + higher lows = uptrend, lower highs + lower lows = downtrend. Structure 'breaks' when the sequence fails — the cleanest trend-change definition there is.

The price at which the most option value expires worthless — where option BUYERS collectively lose most. Price often gravitates toward it into expiry as hedges unwind.

The momentum of breadth — a fast average of net advances minus a slow one. Deep negative extremes cluster near tradeable lows; a violent swing from deeply negative to strongly positive is a thrust.

The tendency of a stretched price to return toward its average. The counterpart to trend-following; valuation and sentiment extremes are mean-reversion tells.

The idea that a network's value scales with the square (or some power) of its users or activity. Applied to crypto by regressing price against active addresses or locked capital.

The rate and persistence of price change. Strong momentum favours continuation; fading momentum warns of exhaustion or reversal.

The bond market's VIX — expected Treasury volatility implied by options. Rising MOVE often leads equity stress: the plumbing tightens before the surface cracks.

MarketDrip's methodology — Motion (structure & fair value), Time (momentum & timing) and Space (macro & cycle). A thesis earns conviction when all three align.

Money supply × velocity = price × quantity of transactions. Applied to crypto: a token's fair value equals the settlement it performs divided by how fast each coin circulates (velocity).

A proxy for dollars available to markets — the Fed balance sheet minus the Treasury General Account and reverse repo. A master tide for risk assets.

Network Value to Transactions — a crypto 'P/E': market cap divided by on-chain settlement volume. High NVT means the price is expensive relative to the network's actual use.

A running total that adds volume on up days and subtracts it on down days. Rising OBV with flat price suggests quiet accumulation; falling OBV into a rally suggests distribution.

The total number of outstanding derivative contracts. Rising open interest shows new money committing; its direction relative to price reveals conviction.

The date options contracts expire (monthly and quarterly). Dealer hedging around large open interest can pin or accelerate price into and out of expiry.

The real-time record of buy and sell orders hitting the market. Reading order flow means judging intent — whether buyers or sellers are in control — from how volume transacts at each price.

A condition where price has moved too far, too fast relative to a baseline — stretched enough that a pause or snap-back becomes more likely.

Where a value ranks within its own history, 0–100. '90th percentile' means the reading has only been higher 10% of the time — a regime-free way to say 'extreme'.

The single price with the most traded volume — the auction's fairest price. It acts as a magnet in balance and a pivot in trend.

The observation that Bitcoin's price has grown as a power of the network's age, forming a remarkably straight line on a log-log chart. Pure extrapolation with zero economics — but historically stable.

The four-year return rhythm around US elections — pre-election years have historically been the strongest, midterm years the choppiest with an autumn low. A slow, structural seasonality layer.

How much of one variable's movement a model explains, 0 to 1. Regression-based fair values on this site display their R² so you can judge how seriously to take them.

A bond yield minus expected inflation (TIPS yields measure it directly). The true cost of money — and the classic driver of gold and long-duration growth stocks, which suffer when real yields rise.

How much an asset ACTUALLY moved (annualized standard deviation of daily returns), as opposed to implied volatility, which is what options price it to move.

A map plotting each asset's relative-strength trend against its momentum, versus a benchmark. Assets rotate clockwise through four quadrants: Improving → Leading → Weakening → Lagging.

How an asset is performing versus a benchmark or peer. Leadership and rotation show up in relative strength before they're obvious in absolute price.

Today's volume versus its recent average. A breakout on 2× relative volume has sponsorship; the same move on 0.5× is suspect — volume is what separates real moves from noise.

The two axes of a rotation graph: RS-Ratio measures the TREND of an asset's strength versus its benchmark; RS-Momentum measures whether that strength is accelerating or fading.

An old desk heuristic: the market's fair P/E plus the inflation rate should sum to roughly 20. Above that, stocks are expensive for the inflation regime they're in.

The tendency of an asset to perform differently by calendar period (month, day of week, event window), measured from historical averages with win rates. Real but small — an execution-timing edge, not a strategy.

A Cboe measure of how expensive deep out-of-the-money puts are versus calls — the price of tail-risk insurance. High SKEW means crash hedges are bid even if spot volatility looks calm.

The total value of dollar-pegged tokens in circulation — crypto's native money supply. Growing stablecoin supply is dry powder entering the ecosystem; shrinking supply is liquidity leaving it.

A scarcity model (famous for Bitcoin): existing supply divided by new annual issuance. Each halving doubles the ratio and, per the model, the fair value — it has over-forecast since 2021; treat it as the bull ceiling.

A local price extreme with lower highs (or higher lows) on both sides — the raw material of market structure. Old swings are the most widely watched stop and breakout levels.

A formula estimating where the central-bank policy rate 'should' be given inflation and unemployment. The gap between it and the actual rate shows how far behind or ahead of the curve the Fed is.

How volatility is priced across horizons (VIX9D vs VIX vs VIX3M). Contango (near-term cheaper than far) is the calm default; backwardation (near-term MORE expensive) signals acute fear and often marks washout lows.

Numbering sessions within a month (1st, 2nd… trading day) to reveal intra-month rhythm — the turn-of-month bid, mid-month lull and OpEx-week patterns show up on this clock.

The documented tendency for equities to be strong in the last two and first three sessions of each month, driven by institutional inflows, rebalancing and payroll contributions.

The dollar value of assets deposited in a blockchain's DeFi applications — locked capital, the closest thing a smart-contract chain has to 'assets under management'. Contains leverage and double-counting.

Volume on rising days divided by volume on falling days over a window. Above ~1.3 with rising OBV reads as accumulation; below ~0.8 with falling OBV reads as distribution.

The price range containing roughly 70% of a session's volume. The Value Area High and Low mark the edges that responsive traders tend to defend.

Implied volatility minus realized volatility. Usually positive — insurance costs money. A huge gap means fear is overpaid; realized above implied means the market is under-hedged for what's already happening.

The Cboe Volatility Index — the expected 30-day volatility of the S&P 500 implied by option prices. Often called the fear gauge: low = calm/complacent, 30+ = stress.

The prevailing 'personality' of the tape — calm and mean-reverting, nervous and two-way, or stressed and trending. The regime matters more than any single VIX print because it decides which tactics work.

A histogram of how much volume traded at each price level over a period. It reveals where the market agreed on value (high volume) versus where it rejected price (low volume).

The volatility of the VIX itself — what hedgers pay for options on volatility. Rising VVIX while the VIX sleeps means big players are quietly paying up for crash protection.

Volume-Weighted Average Price — the average price weighted by volume from a chosen anchor. A reference for whether buyers or sellers are in profit since that point.

The relationship between bond yields across maturities. An inverted curve (short rates above long) has historically preceded recessions.

How many standard deviations a value sits from its mean. In valuation, it measures how stretched price is versus its own history.