> For the complete documentation index, see [llms.txt](https://reverie.gitbook.io/wall-usdstreet-on-rh/llms.txt). Markdown versions of documentation pages are available by appending `.md` to page URLs; this page is available as [Markdown](https://reverie.gitbook.io/wall-usdstreet-on-rh/the-market.md).

# The market

Orders, fills, impact, margin, options, and why overtrading loses.

![A market day, and what price is made of](https://4260649310-files.gitbook.io/~/files/v0/b/gitbook-x-prod.appspot.com/o/spaces%2FKcsYQvCRvRMcCez33U9S%2Fuploads%2Fgit-blob-5cf7a4cafd7b2db731f504e6ffab4cc44c928f9a%2Fmarket-day.svg?alt=media)

## The clock is the wall clock

A session is a fixed twenty-minute slice of real time, numbered from the epoch, and every zone derives the same seed and the same tick from it. The print is the print wherever you stand, and the tape keeps moving while the floor is empty.

A zone nobody was in replays the seconds it missed when somebody walks in. A book left overnight was marked through every bell in between, and the floor tells you where that left you.

## The tape

Twenty-four invented symbols across the eight quarters. Half the outer-quarter names are **chop stock**: thin float, no earnings, a story and a phone bank behind it.

Price is drift, plus the quarter factor, plus idiosyncratic noise, plus **order-flow impact** — your size moves the print in proportion to size / float, and the impact decays.

## Orders

MARKET, LIMIT and STOP, with partial fills, depth-based slippage, and a basis-point fee that is the economy's primary sink.

Positions run long and short with average cost, realised and unrealised P\&L, and initial and maintenance margin. A short borrows float and pays a rate.

## What it costs to be wrong

A round trip costs **50 basis points**. Making money therefore needs:

```
(2 × win rate − 1) × edge  >  50 bp
```

At a 54% win rate that means capturing better than **625 bp a trade** — a real move, held. **Overtrading is the losing strategy, structurally**, and no bankroll changes that inequality. Somebody with a hundred times your money who churns loses to you if you wait and they do not.

## Desk styles

The four styles are unlocked rather than chosen. Anyone can own all four, and nothing on your character displays one as an identity.

| Style        | How it plays                                                  |
| ------------ | ------------------------------------------------------------- |
| **MOMENTUM** | Runs with it: lean on a price, chase, size in loud            |
| **SHORT**    | Sells into strength; breaks a thin book and lets the stops go |
| **MAKING**   | Quotes both sides all day and keeps the spread                |
| **FLOW**     | Works size in pieces nobody notices                           |

## The options desk

A seven-strike chain per name, struck off the open and held still for the session, calls and puts, quoted two-sided. Premium is intrinsic value plus a time-value bell scaled by the name's own volatility and the ticks remaining. Writing locks collateral; everything cash-settles at the bell.

{% hint style="info" %}
An option is never claimable and never bridges. It is a game instrument and stays inside the game.
{% endhint %}

## Where you trade from

THE TERMINAL is on your desk. A trading post on the exchange floor shows one specialist's book — his two quarters — and nothing else. Same orders, same server, same fills.

**How much of the tape you get is a rank question.** In the mail room, `T` is one specialist's book rather than a twenty-four-name wall, and standing at a post gets you that post's names. The whole tape arrives at **JUNIOR BROKER**.


---

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