Archives

Slang used for minimum spread. Depending on the stock price it could be a half-cent, one cent or five cents.

Stocks of leading and nationally known companies that offer a record of continuous dividend payments and other strong investment qualities.

Sales charge paid when selling a mutual fund (a.k.a. deferred load). 

This is a stock’s trading price when a stock begins trading for the day. It may gap up, gap down, or open where it closed the previous session. Where a stock opens can be deceptive, especially if the stock gaps up or down significantly from the closing price.

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 lowest price at which someone is willing to sell the security. When combined with the bid price information, it forms the basis of a stock quote.

The spread is the gap between bid and ask prices of a stock, option, or other security. This term is also used to generally describe a number of strategies that make use of different spreads between calls, puts and the underlying stock, e.g., Bull Spread with Calls, Bull Spread with Puts, Bear Spread with Puts, Bear Spread with Calls, Butterfly Spread, Calendar Spread, Ratio Call Spread.

The price you are asked to pay when you buy a stock (see ‘Bid Price’).

Committees formed for the purpose of assisting in decision-making on an ongoing basis.

The aggregate size in board lots of the most recent ask to sell a particular security.