Level 2 Market Data Explained: Order Books and Market Depth
Learn how Level 2 market data, electronic order books, and market depth work. Understand the NBBO, price-time priority, bid-ask spreads, and liquidity traps.
Market Education
Learn how stocks, bonds and capital markets work. Explore plain-English explanations, worked examples and charts, then follow related coverage to connect market concepts with current events. Find your way around ECMSource.
Relative Strength and Momentum: Why Leadership Matters
Learn how relative strength and momentum identify market leaders, why institutional capital creates the momentum premium, and how to spot leadership.
Pre-IPO Shares: How Secondary Markets and Tender Offers Work
Learn how pre-IPO shares trade, how secondary markets and employee tender offers work, accredited investor rules, ROFR clauses, and key valuation risks.
Stock Market Crash vs. Correction: What Is the Difference?
Understand the technical differences between market pullbacks, corrections, bear markets, and crashes, with historical data, circuit breaker rules, and charts.
Sovereign Debt Explained: How Nations Borrow and Default
Sovereign debt explained: how nations issue bonds, what separates domestic from foreign borrowing, and how debt restructurings actually work.
How to Read the CPI Report: A Beginner’s Guide
A step-by-step walkthrough of the monthly BLS CPI release: headline vs core, MoM vs YoY, SA vs NSA, category weights, and how to avoid common misreadings.
How Social Security COLA Is Calculated: The CPI-W Formula
How SSA turns the CPI-W into next year’s Social Security raise: the Q3 formula, the no-cut rule, and when the number lands.
The 4% Rule Explained: Bengen, Trinity, and Reality
What the 4% rule is, where it came from, the math, the assumptions that do the work, and where it breaks down.
How Mortgage Rates Are Set: 10-Year Treasury + Spread
30-year mortgage rates aren’t tied to the Fed’s rate. They track the 10-year Treasury plus a mortgage spread. Here’s how the math works.
How an IPO Actually Works: S-1, Bookbuilding, Greenshoe
From S-1 to first trade: how underwriters price an IPO, run the roadshow, use the greenshoe, and why the 7% spread refuses to move.