What is After Hours Trading (post-market)?

A period of trading activity that occurs between 4pm(Closing Bell)-8pm. However, your brokerage may only offer after hours trading until 5pm. Institutional Investors have full access until 8pm.

"After-hours trading volume in specific stocks often surges upon the occurrence of market-moving events, such as earnings reports, pre-earnings announcements or M&A activity. Lower liquidity and wider bid-ask spreads are a common feature of after-hours trading. However, investors may consider this a small price to pay for the privilege of exiting a losing position before regular trading commences, or initiating a new position ahead of the crowd. After-hours trading is heaviest in the first hour or two after markets close, before tapering off sharply. As financial markets become increasingly integrated with the advent of globalization, after-hours trading is likely to expand going forward."

 ( http://www.investopedia.com/terms/a/afterhourstrading.asp#ixzz3fsdxgiss )

What is Pre-Market Trading?

A period of trading activity that occurs bewteen 4am-Opening Bell (9:30am). However, your brokerage may not offer pre-market trading until as late as 8am. Institutional Investors have full access at 4am.

"Many investors and traders watch the pre-market trading activity to judge the strength and direction of the market in anticipation for the regular trading session. Pre-market trading activity generally has limited volume and liquidity, and therefore, large bid-ask spreads are common. Many retail brokers offer pre-market trading, but may limit the types of orders that can be used during the pre-market period."

( http://www.investopedia.com/terms/p/premarket.asp#ixzz3fUjhTIuq )

What is an Institutional Investor?

"Large organizations (such as banks, finance companies, insurance companies, labor union funds, mutual funds or unit trusts, pension funds) which have considerable cash reserves that need to be invested. Institutional investors are by far the biggest participants in securities trading and their share of stockmarket volumes have consistently grown over the years. For example, on a typical day, about 70 percent of the trading on the NYSE is on the behalf of institutional investors. Because they are considered knowledgeable and strong enough to safeguard their own interests, institutional investors are relatively less restricted by the security regulations designed to protect smaller investors."

( http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/institutional-investors.html#ixzz3fPG8L9Z8 )

What Is a Retail Investor?

...aka individual investor, aka small investor, aka home gamer? 

It is NOT your shoe collection...but the buying and sell of securities for personal accounts. Retail investing does not include the buying and the selling of securities for companies or for organizations.  

What Is a Handle?

As an avid viewer of CNBC and reader of CNBC articles you will run across the term handle. Handle is a term used by traders to indicate the part of the stock quote before the decimal. If a stock is trading at $43.79 the handle of the stock is 43. You will commonly hear handle used with a price prediction in terms of a stock price moving a certain amount of handles, or a stock reaching a specific handle in the future. ie. "I expect apple to move two handles to the upside to trade at a 134 handle" ie. "yahoo is trading at 50 and I expect it to trade at a 56 handle by the end of the year."

Also, "In foreign exchange markets, the handle refers to the part of the price quote that appears in both the bid and the offer for the currency. For example, if the EUR/USD currency pair has a bid of 1.4183 and an ask of 1.4185, the handle would be 1.41 - the part of the quote that is equal to both the bid and the ask. Also called big figure."  ( http://www.investopedia.com/terms/h/handle.asp#ixzz3eOO1UxvR )