> For the complete documentation index, see [llms.txt](https://minara.ai/docs/llms.txt). Markdown versions of documentation pages are available by appending `.md` to page URLs; this page is available as [Markdown](https://minara.ai/docs/academy/readme/glossary.md). # Glossary Plain-language definitions of the terms used across this guide, grouped by topic. {% embed url="" %} **Strategy types** * **Time-series strategy** — trades one asset by reacting to signals on its own price over time, deciding when to go long, short, or flat. * **Cross-sectional strategy** — trades a basket of assets by scoring and ranking them against each other, holding the top and shorting the bottom. * **Long** — a position that profits when the price goes up. * **Short** — a position that profits when the price goes down. * **Signal** — a condition on price or data that tells the strategy to enter or exit. * **Rebalance** — recomputing the ranking on a schedule and adjusting the portfolio to match. **Universe and factors** * **Universe** — the fixed pool of assets a cross-sectional strategy ranks and picks from, such as TradFi 30, Coin 30, or Coin 50. * **Factor** — a rule that turns each asset into a comparable score, such as 5-day return or a normalized MACD. * **Ranking** — ordering every asset in the universe by its factor score to decide what to hold. * **Z-score** — a factor value expressed as how many standard deviations it sits from the universe average, so different factors can be combined on one scale. * **Equal-weighted** — giving every holding (or every factor) the same weight rather than sizing by conviction. **Price signals and indicators** * **Moving average (MA)** — the average price over a set number of bars, used to smooth out noise and define trend. * **EMA** — an exponential moving average that weights recent prices more heavily than older ones. * **RSI** — the Relative Strength Index, a 0–100 gauge of how overbought or oversold an asset is. * **MACD** — the difference between two EMAs, used to read momentum shifts against its own signal line. * **Breakout** — a move where price pushes above a recent high or below a recent low, often used as an entry. * **Bollinger Bands** — a moving-average band that widens and narrows with volatility, marking stretched prices. * **Momentum** — the tendency of recent winners to keep outperforming over the near term. * **Mean reversion** — the tendency of stretched prices to move back toward their average. * **Volatility** — how much an asset's price swings, higher meaning larger and more frequent moves. **Backtesting** * **Backtest** — running a strategy against historical data to see how it would have performed. * **Paper trading** — running a strategy live against real prices with no real capital, to validate it before deploying. * **Equity curve** — the line showing how the account balance would have grown or shrunk over the backtest. * **Fill** — a single executed trade; total fills counts every entry and exit, including rebalances. * **Overfitting** — tuning a strategy so tightly to past data that it captures noise and fails on new data. * **Cold-start bias** — misleading results from a backtest window too short or too favorable to be representative. **Sizing and execution** * **Leverage** — a multiplier that turns a slice of your capital into a larger market position, magnifying both gains and losses. * **Margin** — the share of your equity set aside as collateral for a leveraged position. * **Perpetual (perp)** — a futures contract with no expiry, the instrument Strategy Studio trades on Lighter and Hyperliquid. * **Notional** — the full market value of a position, equal to margin times leverage. * **Commission** — the exchange fee paid on each trade. Minara includes trading fees in both backtest engines so reported results already reflect this cost. **Return metrics** * **Total Return** — the overall percentage gain or loss across the whole backtest period. * **CAGR** — the compound annual growth rate, the return restated as a steady yearly rate. * **Profit Factor** — gross profit divided by gross loss, where above 1.0 means the strategy made money. * **Win Rate** — the share of trades that closed in profit. * **Win/loss ratio** — the average winning trade divided by the average losing trade. * **Expected payoff** — the average profit or loss per trade across all trades. **Risk metrics** * **Max Drawdown** — the largest drop from a peak to the following trough, showing the worst stretch to sit through. * **Sharpe Ratio** — return per unit of total risk, where above 1.0 is acceptable and above 2.0 is strong. * **Sortino Ratio** — like Sharpe but penalizing only downside volatility, rewarding strategies whose big moves are upward. * **Calmar Ratio** — CAGR divided by max drawdown, measuring return against worst-case pain. * **Alpha** — return earned beyond what the benchmark explains. * **Beta** — how strongly the strategy moves with its benchmark, where 1.0 tracks it one-for-one. **Cross-sectional metrics** * **Information Coefficient (IC)** — how well a factor's ranking lined up with the returns that followed, higher and steadier being better. * **Quantile returns** — the return of each ranked group of the universe, which should line up in order when a factor works. * **Turnover** — how much the portfolio changes at each rebalance, where high turnover raises live trading costs. **Portfolio and exposure** * **Long exposure** — the total size of long positions as a share of capital. * **Short exposure** — the total size of short positions as a share of capital. * **Net exposure** — long exposure minus short exposure, showing the overall directional tilt. * **Composition** — the breakdown of trading volume or holdings across the symbols a strategy traded. * **Avg holding period** — how long a position is held on average before it closes. **Going live** * **Deploy** — locking a strategy's current version into a running instance so it can trade. * **Autopilot** — the mode that runs a deployed strategy on its own, opening and closing positions without manual input. * **APY** — the annualized yield of a deployed strategy, based on realized profit since deployment. --- # Agent Instructions This documentation is published with GitBook. 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