1. A share of a company held by an individual or group. Corporations raise capital by issuing stocks and entitle the stock owners (shareholders) to partial ownership of the corporation. Stocks are bought and sold on what is called an exchange. There are several types of stocks and the two most typical forms are preferred stock and common stock.
3. British term for (1) A fixed interest government debt security issued usually in denominations, and (2) Inventory.
Use 'stock' in a Sentence
When the company was just forming, Joe bought most of the stock and when the company became large, he sold his stock and became rich.
I am happy that I bought stock in a company when I was younger, because it became very valuable 20 years later.
The board of directors decided to use a secondary stock offering to raise additional capital to pay for expansion in China.
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Notable Quotable
5 Criteria for a Profitable Online Business (2 of 5)
"Ideally No stock - Starting an internet business that requires stock taking or a warehouse is going to require you to fork out cash. You may want to go into business where the product or service is delivered in digital form (like electronic book for example). In the internet business, the best is you don't have a physically product in hand but still selling and making profits."
Owning Options Compared to Owning Stocks
"Ironically, the rhetoric about options frequently describes them as desirable because they put managers and owners in the same financial boat. In reality, the boats are far different. No owner has ever escaped the burden of capital costs, whereas a holder of a fixed-price option bears no capital costs at all. An owner must weigh upside potential against downside risk; an option holder has no downside. In fact, the business project in which you would wish to have an option frequently is a project in which you would reject ownership. (I'll be happy to accept a lottery ticket as a gift -- but I'll never buy one.)"
Approaching Stocks After a Huge Crash
"Nobody who has ever been on a falling elevator and survived ever approaches such a conveyance without a fundamentally reduced degree of confidence. (Stated by Robert Reno after the 1987 stock market crash)"
The Only Time a Company Should Repurchase its Shares
"There is only one combination of facts that makes it advisable for a company to repurchase its shares: First, the company has available funds -- cash plus sensible borrowing capacity -- beyond the near-term needs of the business and, second, finds its stock selling in the market below its intrinsic value, conservatively-calculated. To this we add a caveat: Shareholders should have been supplied all the information they need for estimating that value. Otherwise, insiders could take advantage of their uninformed partners and buy out their interests at a fraction of true worth."
What to Do if You Follow Other Investors
"If all of your friends buy a stock and you follow suit, think of lemmings and make sure you have something to catch you if you decide to jump."