📖Glossary - L

A	F	K	P	U
B	G	L	Q	V
C	H	M	R	W
D	I	N	S	X, Y, Z
E	J	O	T

Laggard

An industry or company that is under-performing the market.

Leader

An industry or company that is outperforming the market.

Limit Order

An order to buy or sell a security at a specific price. Unlike a market order, limit orders might not be filled immediately if the market moves away from the specified price.

Line Chart

Price charts that connect the closing prices of a given market over a span of time, forming a curving line on the chart. This type of chart is most useful with overlay or comparison charts that are commonly employed in intermarket analysis. It is also used for visual trend analysis of open-end mutual funds.

Linear Regression

The least-squares line-of-best-fit for a price series. Even though the formula is quite complicated, a linear regression is relatively easy to understand. Imagine a scatter plot (dots) for the closing prices of a security. A linear regression is a line that passes through these points with the best possible fit. See also ChartSchool article on the Raff Regression Channel.

Linear (Arithmetic) Scaling

See Arithmetic (Linear) Scaling.

Liquidity

The ease with which a stock may be bought or sold in volume on the marketplace without causing dramatic price fluctuations. A highly liquid stock is characterized by a large volume of trading and a large pool of interested buyers and sellers.

Livestock Commodities Index ($GVX)

The Livestock Commodities Index ($GVX) charted by StockCharts.com is published by Goldman Sachs. Cattle and hogs are the livestock included. Chart $GVX in GalleryView.

Logarithmic (Percentage) Scaling

On a logarithmic scale chart, the vertical spacing between two points corresponds to the percentage change between those numbers. Thus, on a log scale chart, the vertical distance between 10 and 20 (a 100% increase) is the same as the vertical distance between 50 and 100. Because these charts show percentage relationships, logarithmic scaling is also called “percentage” scaling. It is also called “semi-log” scaling because only one of the axes (the vertical one) is scaled logarithmically. See our ChartSchool article on price scaling.

Long-Legged Doji

This candlestick has long upper and lower shadows with the Doji in the middle of the day's trading range, clearly reflecting the indecision of traders.

Low Pole (LP)

A situation on a Point and Figure Chart that occurs when a down column that falls three boxes or more reverses to an up column. The reversal retraces more than 50% of a down move that has an odd number of O's or retraces more than 62.5% of a down move that has an even number of O's. Because it is not an actual P&F buy signal but offers a good probability of leading to one, this formation is considered a “buy alert."