Beta

A proportion of the earnings of a company that is paid out to its shareholders, the people who own their stock. These dividends are paid out either quarterly (four times per year) or annually (once per year). Not every company pays its shareholders dividends. For example, companies that offer penny stocks likely don’t pay dividends.

The opposite of a bear market is a bull market. When the stock market is experiencing a period of rising stock prices, we call it a Bear Market. An individual stock, as well as a sector, can also be called bullish or bearish.

This is a place where trades are made. Two well-known stock exchanges are the NASDAQ and the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE).

The bid is the price traders are willing to pay per share. It is set against the ask price, which is the price sellers are willing to sell their shares for. What do we call the difference between the bid and the ask price? The spread.

The term CFD stands for “Contract for Difference”. It is a contract used to represent the movement in the prices of financial instruments. In Forex terms, this means that instead of buying and selling large amounts of currency, you can take advantage of price movements without having to own the asset itself. Along with Forex,…

This is the at which an exchange closes and trading stops. Regular trading hours for the NASDAQ and the NYSE are from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Eastern time. After-hours trading continues until 8 p.m.