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A standard trading unit as defined in UMIR (Universal Market Integrity Rules). The board lot size of a security on Toronto Stock Exchange or TSX Venture Exchange depends on the trading price of the security, as follows: Trading price per unit is less than $0.10 – board lot size is 1,000 units Trading price per unit is $0.10 to $0.99 – board lot size is 500 units Trading price per unit is $1.00 or more – board lot size is 100 units

An electronic record of all pending buy and sell orders for a particular stock.

The ratio of a company’s new orders to shipments in the same period. A book to bill ratio greater than 1.0 indicates sales growth. Ratios less than 1.0 reflect shrinking sales. Used mostly in the semiconductor industry.

Orders that do not trade immediately upon entry. These orders are also known as outstanding orders.

After-tax earnings. Literally, the bottom line on an income statement (a.k.a. net income or profit). 

Rather than simply acting as an agent, an investment bank or other underwriters directly purchase securities from the issuer, usually at a discount to the market price, and then sells them to investors.

A type of underwriting where the brokerage firm acts as principal. The brokerage firm risks its own capital to purchase all of the securities to be issued. If the price of the securities decreases before the brokerage firm has had a chance to resell the securities to its clients, the firm absorbs the loss.

This occurs when a stock hits support in the form of an old high, a moving average, a trend line, or a combination of these, and moves up sharply. It is like dropping a ball onto a concrete sidewalk-the sidewalk is hard support and the ball bounces sharply. Not all support is strong enough for a bounce-we look for old tops (highs on the way up), breakout points (they act as resistance until the breakout-if the breakout is on good volume, it should act as support and give you a bounce). If money flow is good and the market is not tanking, we usually see a bounce off of this solid support.

Option arbitrage in which a profitable position is established with no risk. One spread is established with call options. The other spread is established using put options.

We often write about stocks that test their breakout prices. Stocks breaking to new highs or out of consolidations often come back to test the breakout point before continuing with the breakout. This is most likely due to certain investors taking profits. If the breakout is a strong one, buyers come back in at some point before the stock falls below the breakout. This starts the stock back up on the next leg. This test can happen the next day, or it can happen after a week of upward movement. That is why we advise those in on the breakout move to watch for a test. If the stock has had a good move, you don?t want to lose profit on a big test-you can always get back in when the stock moves back up. For a small test soon after the break, you can ride it down, but you have to be careful the stock does not fall back within its previous trading range. Good breakout volume is a sign that this is less likely to happen. There are two plays on the breakout test: when the stock turns back up on good volume, or when the stock tops its breakout high. The former is riskier in that the breakout high can act as resistance, but we will play this move if the other indicators are good-volume, money flow, relative strength. The safer play is the break over the recent breakout high as this shows there is no resistance. If the volume is still good, the stock will most likely continue its breakout.