Share Price
What is real time price?
A real time price is the price of shares at the precise moment that they are trading. There would be a buying and a selling price. The difference between it would be called a spread. You would, at any time during the course of the day, decide to buy a share or sell it on the basis of a real time price.
How do I access real time prices?
You can access real time prices by phoning any stock broker, but nowadays there are many internet sites that offer the same facility. You can access these by searching on places such as Google.
Where else are share prices listed?
Other places to look for share prices are newspapers such as The Financial Times, and many leading daily papers which are not so specialized such as The Telegraph and Times. Of course I would advise you that those prices shown in the newspapers are closing prices for the previous day and not real-time prices.
Why do share prices of different companies differ?
Companies share prices differ for a number of reasons: profitability, supply and demand, growth, income and sectoral course they are doing.
What can make share prices go up and down?
Share price can go up and down. They can be affected by many pieces of information, worldwide events, profit forecasts, profit results from a particular company, interest rates, whether or not a sector is in an area that is influenced by, lets say unemployment. An example of a major movement in the stock market, could have been the 9/11 bombing, which affected worldwide markets. Markets fell dramatically the first day and slowly recovered over the next few days.
How are share prices determined?
Share prices are determined by simple supply and demand. If there are no buyers at a particular level, the share price will fall to attract buyers. The same applies to sellers. For instance, if the share price is 95 to 100 and there are only sellers at 98, the market maker will try and move the price up to 98 to 103 so that he can accommodate his seller.
What is the bid price?
The bid price is the price at which the market maker would buy your shares from you and the price at which you would sell your shares for him. For example if a share is trading at 100-110 you would sell at a 100.
What is the offer price?
The offer price is the price at which the market maker will sell shares to you. It's the price at which you will buy shares. For example, if the shares were quoted to you at $200-210, you would actually buy the shares at $210
What is the spread?
The term the spread is the difference between the buying and selling price of a market maker, and basically covers his costs or loss and profit that he makes on those shares. For example, fifty to fifty two pence is the spread of 2p.
Why is the spread important?
The spread is important for a number of reasons. Firstly, it gives the market-maker the opportunity to cover his costs and trading profits, because a market-maker may, in the course of a day, buy a number of very small parcels of shares and just sell on one large line of shares. It also helps the broker because a broker can visit various market-makers and try and negotiate a price within the spread of the marketplace.