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A security that can be transferred from one party holder to another without restrictions, provided that all proper documentation is included.

A trading halt is imposed by the exchange, usually due to the dissemination of news that might impact a stock’s price.

A one-character to three-character, alphabetic root symbol, which represents an issuer listed on Toronto Stock Exchange or TSX Venture Exchange.

Analysts publish earnings forecasts for companies they follow. Sometimes analysts publish a lower number than they really believe to reduce chances of a negative surprise, but they supposedly “whisper” what they really think to their best friends. Most whisper numbers you see on the Web are simply the analysts’ consensus forecasts plus the average of the most recent two or three earnings surprises. 

These are lines, both up and down, that are formed by a stock?s price movement. In the simplest sense, trend lines are drawn between a stocks successive lows to find support, and successive highs to find resistance. The more times a stock?s price touches a trendline and holds, the better an indicator it is. Trend lines can be long term and short term, and, as noted, can be used to determine support and resistance. We often use trendlines to help determine when we should enter of exit trades. When we are in positions and following the trend, we do not like to see the stock break its trend for greater than one day. If a stock does that, it has changed its character, and the trendline is most likely no longer in force.

Capital and preferred shares issued by a split-share corporation. A split-share corporation holds common shares of one or more companies. The corporation then issues two classes of shares – capital shares and preferred shares. The objective is to generate fixed, cumulative, preferential dividends for the holders of preferred shares and to enable the holders of the capital shares to participate in any capital appreciation (or depreciation) in the underlying common shares.

The character or characters that may follow the stock symbol to uniquely identify a listed security. It can be a single alphabetic character, two alphabetic characters, or a combination of two plus one characters with a maximum of eight characters for the stock symbol, extension and separator dots in between. For example, BMO.PR.U. Currently, they include: A-B – class of shares B – debentureE – equity dividendH – NEX marketIR – installment receiptsNO, NS, NT – notesP – Capital Pool CompanyPR – preferredR – subscription receiptsRT – rightsS – special U.S. termsU, V – U.S. fundsUN – units W – when issued WT – warrants

Each time a stock is bought and sold, it is displayed on an electronic ticker tape. It is a record of current trading activity on an exchange.

A short sale squeeze occurs when there are many short sale positions on a stock the stock begins to increase. As the stock price rises, the short sellers scramble to cover their short positions, i.e., buying the stock they have sold back. This creates demand for the stock above that which caused the stock price to start rising in the first place, and can lead to rapid price appreciation.

Support levels are levels where a declining stock will find bottom and bounce up from. Supports are formed when a stock breaks above resistance and holds above that level: the old resistance then becomes support. Support levels are also formed when a stock spends a lot of time at one level and then breaks upward. The level that the stock spent most of the time at will most likely act as support. Key moving averages, such as the 18, 50, and 200, also act as support. We like to buy stocks as they bounce upward off of support levels and are backed by good money flow and buying.