Same Day Transaction
A transaction that matures on the day the transaction takes place.

Selling Rate
Rate at which a bank is willing to sell foreign currency.

Settlement
Actual exchange of base currency and currency between principal and client.

Settlement Date
The date upon which foreign exchange contracts settle.

Settlement Risk
Where a payment is made to a counter party before the counter value payment has been made. The risk is that the counter party's payment will not be received.

Short
A market position where the client has sold a currency he does not already own. Normally expressed in base currency terms, e.g. short US dollars (long Deutsch marks).

Short-Term Interest Rates
Normally the 90 day rate.

Sidelined
A major currency that is lightly traded due to major market interest being in another currency pair.

Slippage
Refers to the negative (or depreciating) pip value between where a stop loss order becomes a market order and where that market order may be filled.

Soft Currency
A currency which is expected to devalue or depreciate against other currencies, or whose exchange rate must be supported by central bank intervention or exchange controls.

Soft Market
More potential sellers than buyers, which creates an environment where rapid price falls are likely.

Speculation
Buying or selling currency in expectation of an exchange rate movement, so as to make a profit, either in the same market or between two different markets, e.g. forex cash markets and derivatives markets.

Spot
Spot means that the settlement date of a deal is two business days forward.

Spot Next
The overnight swap from the spot date to the next business day.

Spot Price / Rate
The price at which the currency is currently trading in the spot market.

Spread
The difference in prices between bid and offer rates.

Square
Purchase and sales are in balance and thus the dealer has no open position.

Squawk Box
A speaker connected to a phone often used in broker trading desks.

Squeeze
Action by a central bank to reduce supply in order to increase the price of money.

Stable Market
An active market which can absorb large sale or purchases of currency without major moves.

Standard
A term referring to certain normal amounts and maturities for dealing.

Sterilization
Central Bank activity in the domestic money market to reduce the impact on money supply of its intervention activities in the FX market.

Sterling
British pound, otherwise known as cable.

Stocky
Market slang for Swedish Krona.

Stop Loss Order (or Stop)
An order to buy or sell when a particular price is reached, either above or below the price that prevailed when the order was given.

Strike Price
For call options, the specified price at which the buyer has the right to purchase the underlying contract.

Structural Hedging
The process of reducing or eliminating currency exposure by matching receivables and payables in each currency or currency bloc to minimize the net exposure.

Support
Price level at which you expect buying to take place. See resistance.

Swap Price
A price as a differential between two dates of the swap.

Swap
An agreement between two parties to exchange a series of future payments. In a currency swap, the exchange of payments (cash flows) are in two currencies, one of which is often the US dollar.

Swift
The Society for Worldwide International Fund Transfers is a multinational facility for fund transfers based in Belgium and the Netherlands.

Swissy
Market slang for Swiss Franc.