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Information on the last trade, and current bid and asked prices. Most quotes are intentionally delayed about 20 minutes.

See Market Capitalization.

A push-out occurs during a stock split when new shares are forwarded to the registered holders of old share certificates, without the holders having to surrender the old shares. Both the old and new shares have equal value.

The ratio of put trading volume divided by the call trading volume. For example, a put/call ratio of 0.74 means that for every 100 calls bought, 74 puts were bought. It is a contrary indicator. A reading of 1.0 or more is very bullish as most people think the market is going down. When the majority thinks the market is going to move a certain direction, it usually does the opposite.

A legal document describing securities being offered for sale to the public. It must be prepared in accordance with provincial securities commission regulations. Prospectus documents usually disclose pertinent information concerning the company’s operations, securities, management and purpose of the offering.

Material given to stockholders when the corporation solicits shareholder votes. The proxy statement usually contains details on the corporation’s executive compensation plans. 

The number of issued and outstanding shares of a company, excluding shares held by persons who, individually or in conjunction with other persons, hold 20% or more of the issuer’s voting securities.

Bottom line (after tax) earnings divided by sales.

Trades based on signals from computer programs. These are usually entered directly from the traders computer to the market’s computer system. Program trading accounts for an increasingly larger and larger portion of all trades throughout the day. Additionally, these large trades may be hedged by an offsetting position in index futures.

The private offering of a security to a small group of buyers. Resale of the security is limited. See Best Efforts and Bought Deal Underwriting.