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The lowest price at which someone is willing to sell a round lot of security. Also called the asked price.

See: Mutual Fund

General term of that function of a broker-dealer responsible for execution, clearance, and settlement of customer transactions and the recordkeeping of customer accounts. Also called operations department. Industry slang normally refers to transacting, clearing, delivery and settlement as the "street side", with customer recordkeeping as the "customer side" of individual transactions.

The right to either buy or sell a security at a given price, either within a definite time or at an indefinite time. See also: Call, Put

The form, completed by a registered representative, that contains the customer's instructions to buy or sell plus the other qualifications imposed by the customer on the transaction. Federal law requires that customer instructions be entered on an order ticket and that the order tickets be maintained for a specified time.

Used to describe income which is not capital gains. Although at one time ordinary income and capital gains were taxed differently, they are both taxed as ordinary income today. Contrast: Capital Gain

The "market" for trading securities not listed on an exchange. Prices are determined by negotiation between buyer and seller. A form of negotiated market.

Term used by technical analysts who (1) expected a security to go down in value, but (2) it went down too fast. An oversold technical situation is often manifested by a "gap," or "selling climax," in which the opening price is substantially below the closing price or the low of the previous trading day. Technical analysts expect an oversold condition to be corrected by a rise in the price of the security.

A term used by fundamental analysts who feel that the present market price of a security, judged in terms of the company's earnings and the current price-earnings ratio, is not justified in terms of historical values given to the securities of that company. The analyst who gives a judgment of overvalued to a security expects the price of the security to drop in value.