It is perhaps surprising that trading generally has made so little progress in developing a commonly understood and clearly defined set of terms. Even something as logically straightforward as Volume Weighted Average Price (VWAP) can be defined by different people in different ways. Algorithmic trading suffers not only from this lack of consistency but also from the predilection of many algorithmic service providers to ‘name’ individual algorithms with words that are intended to convey something of the underlying strategy. Names like ‘Nighthawk‘ and ‘Guerrilla’ vie with OPL in a bid to offer clarity but in many cases lead to further confusion.

In constructing this Glossary ATMonitor has sought where possible to assemble definitions that should be regarded as uncontroversial and has deliberately avoided inclusion of proprietary named algorithms whose purpose and approach can only be effectively described by their creators. However, we accept that some readers will consider the definitions too short and imprecise, while others will find them too long for something they consider ‘obvious’.

We welcome comments, whether about definitions that are not included or differences in what any given word means. To contribute your knowledge to the process please contact us

• A

  AAP
  AAP DTD
  ABI
  Abstract Class
  ACA
  more

• B

  Bachman
  Back-propagation
  Backus Naur
  BASIC
  BBN
  more

• C

  C
  C Beautifier
  c shell
  C++
  Cache
  more

• D

  DAA
  DACNOS
  DAD
  daemon
  DANTE
  more

• E

  E-mail
  E
  EAPLS
  EARN
  EAST
  more

• F

  FATMEN
  FDDI
  FEA
  Feature
  Feed-forward
  more

• G

  G2
  GAIA
  GAMS
  GANDALF
  Garbage collection
  more

• H

  h
  Hardware description language
  Harmony
  Harvest
  Haskell
  more

• I

  I-CASE
  IAB
  IAD
  IAFA
  IANA
  more

• J

  Jackson method
  JANET
  Java
  JAZELLE
  JEDI
  more

• K

  Kala
  KAPPA
  KBS
  KDD
  Kerberos
  more

• L

  Labview
  LAMPF
  LAN
  Language-Based Editor
  LANL
  more

• M

  MACAnalyst
  MACDesigner
  Mach
  Macintosh
  MacX
  more

• N

  NAG
  NAPLPS
  NAS
  NASA
  NBS
  more

• O

  OAK
  OATH
  Oberon
  Object-oriented
  Object-oriented database
  more

• P

  P-CAD
  P2P
  PACS
  Page Description Language
  Panda
  more

• Q

  QA
  QAM
  QBE
  QIP
  Quantify
  more

• R

  RAD
  RAID
  RAL
  RARE
  RBSE
  more

• S

  SA
  SAA
  Saber-C
  Saber-C++
  SADT
  more

• T

  TAE Plus
  TAFIM
  Taligent
  Taos
  TAPI
  more

• U

  UAA
  UCS
  UDP
  UI
  UIL
  more

• V

  V
  Validation
  VAX
  VAX DOCUMENT
  VAX/VMS
  more

• W

  W3
  W3C
  WABI
  WAIS
  WAN
  more

• X

  X-designer
  X-terminal
  X
  X client
  X Consortium
  more

• Y

  Y++
  yacc
  YACL
  YP
  YSM
  more

• Z

  Z
  Z39.50
  ZEBRA
  ZOG