The price
What the number on the chart is and where it comes from.
- Tick
- One price update. Our indices emit a tick every one or two seconds depending on the index, and that cadence never changes. A tick is the atomic unit here: durations, barriers and settlement are all defined against ticks, not against clock time.
- Spot
- The price at a given moment. The entry spot is the tick your contract was bought at; the exit spot is the tick it settled against.
- Sequence number
- Every tick carries one. Settlement records the sequence number it used, not just the price, so a contract can be replayed against exactly the tick that decided it rather than a tick that merely looks similar.
- Volatility
- How far the price typically moves per tick. Our indices are named for it: a higher number means larger moves, not a different kind of market.
- Mean reversion
- A tendency for the price to be pulled back toward a slowly moving average. It is a parameter of the generating process, not an observation about the market, and it is why these series do not simply wander off.
- Regime
- A period during which the generating process uses one set of parameters. Regimes switch occasionally, which is what produces stretches that feel calm and stretches that feel violent.
The four families
Twenty-eight indices, four generating processes. Choosing one is choosing a statistical personality.
- Vortex
- Pure volatility indices driven by Brownian motion, with no directional bias and no jumps. The plainest of the four and the sensible place to start. Available at 1-second and 2-second tick speeds.
- Pulse
- Momentum indices with periodic spikes. Pulse Rise climbs with occasional upward jumps; Pulse Drop falls with occasional downward jumps. The drift is the point: these are not symmetric.
- Flux
- Symmetric jump-diffusion. Sudden moves in either direction with no directional bias, so a jump tells you nothing about the next one.
- Grid
- Discrete stepped movement. The price increments in fixed amounts rather than continuously, which makes it clean for strategies that care about exact levels.
Buying a contract
The parameters you set before you click, and what each one binds you to.
- Contract
- A single agreement with a defined condition, a defined expiry and a defined payout. It is not a position you manage; it is a bet on a stated condition that resolves itself.
- Stake
- What you pay to buy the contract. It leaves your balance at purchase. On most contract types the stake is the maximum you can lose.
- Payout
- What the contract returns if its condition is met, stake included. A payout of 1.85x on a 100 stake returns 185, so the profit is 85.
- Duration in ticks
- The contract runs for a counted number of ticks. Five ticks on a 2-second index is about ten seconds; on a 1-second index about five. This is the one most often confused with the next entry.
- Duration in seconds
- The contract runs for a period of clock time and settles on whichever tick falls at the end of it. Not the same as a tick duration, and the two produce different contracts on the same market.
- Barrier
- A price level the contract is defined against. Absolute barriers are a price; relative barriers are an offset from the entry spot, so they move with where you entered.
- Expiry
- The moment the condition is evaluated. Everything before expiry is unrealised, and on most contract types nothing that happens mid-contract matters unless the contract says it does.
The eight contract types
Each one is a different question about the same price series.
- Rise / Fall
- Does the exit spot finish above or below the entry spot? The simplest contract on the platform and the one whose behaviour is easiest to reason about.
- Higher / Lower
- Does the exit spot finish above or below a barrier you choose, rather than above or below where you started? Moving the barrier moves the payout.
- Touch / No Touch
- Does the price ever reach a level at any point before expiry? Unlike the two above, the path matters, not just the ending.
- Over / Under
- Is the last digit of the closing tick above or below a digit you name. A digit contract: the size of the price move is irrelevant, only the final digit counts.
- Even / Odd
- Is the last digit of the closing tick even or odd. Another digit contract, and the one where assuming direction matters will mislead you most.
- Matches / Differs
- Does the last digit of the closing tick match a digit you name exactly. Low probability, correspondingly high payout.
- Multipliers
- Amplified exposure to the price move, with the downside capped at your stake. Unlike the contracts above there is no fixed payout: the return scales with how far the price went.
- Accumulators
- Compounds while the price stays inside a range, and ends if it leaves. Rewards quiet stretches and is punished by the regime switches described above.
After it settles
What happens to the money, and what you can check afterwards.
- Settlement
- Deciding the outcome and moving the money. It happens server-side against the archived tick at the recorded sequence number, never in your browser.
- Exit spot
- The tick the contract settled against. Shown on every finished contract, with its sequence number, so it can be checked rather than assumed.
- Sell back
- Closing a contract before expiry for its current value. Available on some contract types. The price offered reflects the contract’s worth at that moment, which is usually less than the full payout you are giving up.
- Replay
- Playing a finished contract back tick by tick, showing entry, barrier and the exact settling tick. This is how you check our arithmetic.
- Ledger
- The append-only record of every balance change. Entries are added, never edited, so a correction appears as its own line and a statement reconciles months later.
- Statement
- An export of your ledger with references and a running balance, available from Reports.
Risk. Synthetic indices are volatile by design. It is possible to lose your whole stake on any single contract, and losses can accumulate quickly at short durations. Trade the demo account until you can explain, before you buy, exactly how a contract settles and what it pays.
Try one on the demo
Reading a definition and watching a contract settle against it are different kinds of knowing. The demo costs nothing and uses the same engine.