Glossary: Forex Terms Every Filipino Beginner Should Know
✓ Last verified 2026-07-25
A quick reference for terms used throughout our guides. We’ll expand this as we publish more content.
Trading basics
Pip — The smallest standard price movement in a currency pair, used to measure gains and losses.
Spread — The difference between the buy (ask) and sell (bid) price of a currency pair. This is one of the main ways brokers earn revenue on your trades.
Leverage — Borrowed capital that lets you control a larger position than your account balance alone would allow. Leverage magnifies both gains and losses — we’ll publish a dedicated leverage risk explainer as part of our next content batch.
Margin — The amount of your own funds set aside as collateral to open a leveraged position.
Swap / rollover fee — A fee (or occasionally a credit) applied when you hold a leveraged position open overnight, reflecting the interest rate differential between the two currencies in the pair.
Regulation & broker terms
Regulated broker — A broker licensed and supervised by a financial authority (e.g., FCA, ASIC, CySEC) that imposes rules such as client fund segregation and minimum capital requirements. See our regulated vs unregulated brokers guide.
Segregated funds — Client deposits held in accounts separate from the broker’s own operating funds, a common regulatory requirement designed to protect client money if the broker faces financial trouble.
SEC advisory — A public warning issued by the Securities and Exchange Commission (Philippines) about an entity soliciting investments without proper authority. See our SEC advisory list explained guide.
Cease-and-desist order (CDO) — A stronger SEC enforcement action ordering an entity to stop a specific activity, typically issued after an advisory if the entity continues operating.
Negative balance protection — A broker policy that prevents your account balance from going below zero, even during extreme market volatility.
Prop firm terms
Challenge / evaluation — A paid, rules-based trading test a prop firm uses to assess whether a trader qualifies for a funded account. See our what is a prop firm guide.
Funded account — An account a trader is granted after passing a prop firm’s evaluation, trading the firm’s capital under a profit-split arrangement.
Drawdown limit — The maximum loss (daily or overall) a trader is allowed before breaching a prop firm’s rules and failing the evaluation or funded account.
Profit split — The percentage of trading profits a funded trader keeps, with the remainder retained by the prop firm.
This glossary is general educational content, not investment advice. Definitions reflect common industry usage and may vary slightly between individual brokers or firms — always check a specific provider’s own terms.