 | This article needs additional citations for verification .(March 2013) |
A financial quotation refers to specific market data relating to a security or commodity. While the term quote specifically refers to the bid price or ask price of an instrument, it may be more generically used to relate to the last price which this security traded at ("last sale"). [1] This may refer to both exchange-traded and over-the-counter financial instruments.
The bid price (also known as the buy price) and the ask price (also known as the sell price) of a security are the prices (and often quantities) at which buyers and sellers are willing to purchase or sell that security. The bid shows the current price at which a buyer is willing to purchase shares, while the ask shows the current price at which they are willing to sell. The quantities at which these trades are placed are referred to as "bid size" and "ask size". For instance, if a trader submits a limit order to buy 1,000 shares of MSFT at $28.00, this order will appear in a market maker for MSFT's book with a bid of $28.00 and a bid size of 1000. The difference between the bid and ask price is known as the bid–ask spread.
Level 1 quotations represent realtime bid/ask data, the most commonly displayed market data. Level 1 data typically will display the Best-Bid-Offer ("BBO" or "Inside Quote"), i.e. the lowest ask and highest bid available at the time.
Level 2 data displays the best bid and ask prices (also known as "top-of-book") for each market participant in a given security. In other words, at a given time there may be several market makers participating in trade matching for a specific stock. Level 2 data will display the highest bid and lowest ask for each individual market maker.
Level 2 information is of interest to traders and brokers because it indicates the buying and selling pressure behind individual securities.
Similar in format to live streaming share prices, a typical Level 2 screen is split in two vertical halves and will show orders on both the bid price of a security (left-hand side) and the offer price (right-hand side). [2]
On major, heavily traded stocks the "depth" of the orders can quite often be in excess of 20/30 orders to both buy and sell at lower (left) and higher (right) prices.
Traders can use this information to predict the short-term movement of a share or security in conjunction with volume traded, and attempt to profit from this information, which is usually legal as the information is in the public domain. The reason for this is that market makers sit “behind” such a screen by being obliged to both buy and sell the share at the posted price up to what is known as normal market size.
For certain market centers such as NASDAQ, a full depth-of-book (DOB) is available, whereby every quotation for every market participant is displayed.
The stock exchange electronic trading system (SETS) is an electronic order-driven system for trading the UK bluechip stocks, including FTSE 100 and FTSEurofirst 300 stocks. The SETS order book matches buy and sell orders on a price/time priority. On SEAQ, all buys and sells go through a market maker who acts as an intermediary.
The basis of SETS is that it directly matches willing buyers and sellers, creating efficiency in the markets by doing away with the intermediary of the market maker. This efficiency is true while the SETS system is populated by the most liquid and heavily traded stocks, but if matched bargains operate on less liquid stocks, waiting for a buyer to match with a seller could take hours, days or weeks. Because of the efficiency of the SETS system, stocks traded tend to have narrow spreads so the cost of entry and exit from a position is much smaller.
The Nasdaq Stock Market is an American stock exchange based in New York City. It is the most active stock trading venue in the U.S. by volume, and ranked second on the list of stock exchanges by market capitalization of shares traded, behind the New York Stock Exchange. The exchange platform is owned by Nasdaq, Inc., which also owns the Nasdaq Nordic stock market network and several U.S.-based stock and options exchanges. Although it trades stock of healthcare, financial, entertainment, retail, and food businesses, it focuses more on technology stocks.
A stock market, equity market, or share market is the aggregation of buyers and sellers of stocks, which represent ownership claims on businesses; these may include securities listed on a public stock exchange as well as stock that is only traded privately, such as shares of private companies that are sold to investors through equity crowdfunding platforms. Investments are usually made with an investment strategy in mind.
In finance, being short in an asset means investing in such a way that the investor will profit if the market value of the asset falls. This is the opposite of the more common long position, where the investor will profit if the market value of the asset rises. An investor that sells an asset short is, as to that asset, a short seller.
Day trading is a form of speculation in securities in which a trader buys and sells a financial instrument within the same trading day, so that all positions are closed before the market closes for the trading day to avoid unmanageable risks and negative price gaps between one day's close and the next day's price at the open. Traders who trade in this capacity are generally classified as speculators. Day trading contrasts with the long-term trades underlying buy-and-hold and value investing strategies. Day trading may require fast trade execution, sometimes as fast as milli-seconds in scalping, therefore direct-access day trading software is often needed.
A market maker or liquidity provider is a company or an individual that quotes both a buy and a sell price in a tradable asset held in inventory, hoping to make a profit on the bid–ask spread, or turn. The benefit to the firm is that it makes money from doing so; the benefit to the market is that this helps limit price variation (volatility) by setting a limited trading price range for the assets being traded.
The bid–ask spread is the difference between the prices quoted for an immediate sale (ask) and an immediate purchase (bid) for stocks, futures contracts, options, or currency pairs in some auction scenario. The size of the bid–ask spread in a security is one measure of the liquidity of the market and of the size of the transaction cost. If the spread is 0 then it is a frictionless asset.
An electronic communication network (ECN) is a type of computerized forum or network that facilitates the trading of financial products outside traditional stock exchanges. An ECN is generally an electronic system that widely disseminates orders entered by market makers to third parties and permits the orders to be executed against in whole or in part. The primary products that are traded on ECNs are stocks and currencies. ECNs are generally passive computer-driven networks that internally match limit orders and charge a very small per share transaction fee.
A bid price is the highest price that a buyer is willing to pay for some goods. It is usually referred to simply as the "bid". In bid and ask, the bid price stands in contrast to the ask price or "offer", and the difference between the two is called the bid–ask spread. An unsolicited bid or purchase offer is when a person or company receives a bid even though they are not looking to sell.
Ask price, also called offer price, offer, asking price, or simply ask, is the price a seller states they will accept.
Algorithmic trading is a method of executing orders using automated pre-programmed trading instructions accounting for variables such as time, price, and volume. This type of trading attempts to leverage the speed and computational resources of computers relative to human traders. In the twenty-first century, algorithmic trading has been gaining traction with both retail and institutional traders. A study in 2019 showed that around 92% of trading in the Forex market was performed by trading algorithms rather than humans.
An order is an instruction to buy or sell on a trading venue such as a stock market, bond market, commodity market, financial derivative market or cryptocurrency exchange. These instructions can be simple or complicated, and can be sent to either a broker or directly to a trading venue via direct market access. There are some standard instructions for such orders.
A crossing network is an alternative trading system (ATS) that matches buy and sell orders electronically for execution without first routing the order to an exchange or other public displayed market such as an electronic communication network (ECN). Such crossing networks are a type of dark pool that employ computerized systems to match buyers and sellers of large blocks of shares without using a stock exchange. The advantage of the crossing network is the ability to execute a large block order without impacting the public quote and avoidance of market impact.
Scalping, when used in reference to trading in securities, commodities and foreign exchange, may refer to either
The Stock Exchange Automated Quotation system is a system for trading small-cap London Stock Exchange (LSE) stocks. Stocks need to have at least two market-makers to be eligible for trading via SEAQ. New securities cannot be listed via the SEAQ system. In the LSE, only AIM stocks with low liquidity are traded on the SEAQ market. It is a quote-driven market made by specialized and competing dealers, also known as market-makers. The system contains no public limit order book.
An order book is the list of orders that a trading venue uses to record the interest of buyers and sellers in a particular financial instrument. A matching engine uses the book to determine which orders can be fully or partially executed.
In finance, a dark pool is a private forum for trading securities, derivatives, and other financial instruments. Liquidity on these markets is called dark pool liquidity. The bulk of dark pool trades represent large trades by financial institutions that are offered away from public exchanges like the New York Stock Exchange and the NASDAQ, so that such trades remain confidential and outside the purview of the general investing public. The fragmentation of electronic trading platforms has allowed dark pools to be created, and they are normally accessed through crossing networks or directly among market participants via private contractual arrangements. Generally, dark pools are not available to the public, but in some cases, they may be accessed indirectly by retail investors and traders via retail brokers.
Stocks consist of all the shares by which ownership of a corporation or company is divided. A single share of the stock means fractional ownership of the corporation in proportion to the total number of shares. This typically entitles the shareholder (stockholder) to that fraction of the company's earnings, proceeds from liquidation of assets, or voting power, often dividing these up in proportion to the amount of money each stockholder has invested. Not all stock is necessarily equal, as certain classes of stock may be issued, for example, without voting rights, with enhanced voting rights, or with a certain priority to receive profits or liquidation proceeds before or after other classes of shareholders.
High-frequency trading (HFT) is a type of algorithmic trading in finance characterized by high speeds, high turnover rates, and high order-to-trade ratios that leverages high-frequency financial data and electronic trading tools. While there is no single definition of HFT, among its key attributes are highly sophisticated algorithms, co-location, and very short-term investment horizons in trading securities. HFT uses proprietary trading strategies carried out by computers to move in and out of positions in seconds or fractions of a second.
The May 6, 2010, flash crash, also known as the crash of 2:45 or simply the flash crash, was a United States trillion-dollar flash crash which started at 2:32 p.m. EDT and lasted for approximately 36 minutes.
MT4 ECN Bridge is a technology that allows a user to access the interbank foreign exchange market through the MetaTrader 4 (MT4) electronic trading platform. MT4 was designed to allow trading between a broker and its clients, so it did not provide for passing orders through to wholesale forex market via electronic communication networks (ECNs). In response, a number of third-party software companies developed Straight-through processing bridging software to allow the MT4 server to pass orders placed by clients directly to an ECN and feed trade confirmations back automatically.