Words AlertDesk uses
- Service
- A newsletter or alert service whose letters AlertDesk reads: one you pay for, or a free one.
- Rec
- A service's recommendation: to buy (or sell) a stock or an option, and later its close -- "sell", "close half". A rec stays in force until the service closes it.
- Information-only
- Lines from a service that doesn't recommend trades to you -- a fund's own trades (ARK), a free letter's picks or ranks (Zacks). Shown grey on the Feed, never matched to your trades, never scored.
- Exact and possible match
- Exact: your trade is in the very stock or option contract a rec names. Possible: the same underlying stock, but another strike, expiry, or shares instead of an option (or the other way). A possible match counts for the service only once you confirm it under Needs a look.
- Position
- What you hold now in one stock or one option contract, in one account.
- Trade
- One position from its first buy (or sell, for a short) until it's back to zero. Buying again later starts a new trade.
- Lot
- Each purchase (or sale, for a short) inside a trade. When you sell part, the oldest lot goes first.
- Realized P/L
- Money made or lost on what you've closed: what you received less what you paid, fees included. Options count 100 shares each.
- Starting position
- Something you held before your imported history begins. Its cost comes from your positions file or from you, and it's always labelled.
- Manual
- A trade you entered yourself (Trades → Enter a trade manually) because your broker's files don't show it yet. It counts like any fill, marked Manual in amber, until an imported file carries the same fill: then the file's rows replace it and the mark goes.
- Paper account
- Practice money: trades you type in (or start from a rec), with no broker and no number. Its results are always shown apart from your real accounts'.
- Transferred in
- Shares or options moved into the account from another. Their cost comes from your broker's lot details or positions file, and they're labelled too.
- Needs a look
- Anything AlertDesk wasn't sure of. It's listed with the rows involved instead of being guessed.
- Mark
- An option's price saved one evening after the market closed: the middle of the bid and ask, or the last trade. A day without one says "no price — not scored", never a guess.
- DTE
- Days to expiry: on Positions, the calendar days to an option contract's last trading day -- its expiry, or the trading day before it when the expiry is a market holiday. "today" on that day; under 7 days it shows amber. Positions are listed by it, soonest first, shares last.
- Unrealized P/L
- What an open position would bring at its latest price, less what it cost. Nothing is sold, so it isn't counted as made or lost. On Positions: Value less Cost, in dollars and as a percent of the cost paid ("+$482.00 (+6.2%)").
- Day
- On Positions, how much a position's value changed since the previous saved price, for the latest market session, in dollars and as a percent of the cost paid. Until that session's close (shares) or evening mark (options) is saved it shows —, never an older day's change.
- Settled and working closes
- On Exit Timing a close is settled once its reference is known: the service's exit, or the contract's last day once it has passed. Until then it's working, with a reading so far. Its realized P/L is final at the close either way.
- Ahead, Behind, Followed, Late
- Your close against the service's exit: well before it and better or worse, on it (its day, the day before, or just after), or after it.
- Right call, Early
- A close of your own, against the contract's last day: right when holding on would have left you no better off, early when it would have done better. Near flat closes aren't judged.
- Colours
- On every page: green, all fine; grey, something to know, nothing to do; amber, needs you -- something is owed, and the card says what to do; red, needs you now. The dot in the menu bar (on a Mac) or the tray (on Windows) shows the worst colour (grey leaves it green).
- Pack
- The part of AlertDesk that knows one service's letters, or one broker's files, or the market's calendar. Packs come with AlertDesk and are updated with it; each is checked against a signed fingerprint before it's used.
ARK Invest and Zacks are examples of letters AlertDesk can read, not services we suggest or endorse. AlertDesk recommends no service.