Bid price

The price a buyer is willing to pay for a security. This is one part of the bid with the other being the bid size, which details the amount of shares the investor is willing to purchase at the bid price. The opposite of the bid is the ask price, which is the price a seller is looking to get for his or her shares.

Investopedia Says:
The use of bid and ask is a fundamental part of the market system, as it details the exact amount that you could buy or sell at any point in time. Remember that the current price is not the price for which you can purchase the security, but the price at which the shares last traded hands. If you want to get an idea of the price for which you can buy a security, you need to look at the bid and ask prices because they will often differ from the current price.

Related Links:
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Learn how to set each type of stop and limit when trading currencies. Place Forex Orders Properly
Learn how the largest and fastest growing market can work for you. The Forex Market

The noun has one meaning:

Meaning #1: (on the stock exchange) the price at which a broker is willing to buy a certain security

This article is about financial bidding. For other uses, see Bid.

A bid price is the highest price that a buyer (i.e., bidder) is willing to pay for a good. 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 offer is when a person or company receives a bid even though they are not looking to sell. A bidding war is said to occur when a large number of bids are placed in rapid succession by two or more entities, especially when the price paid is much greater than the ask price, or greater than the first bid in the case of unsolicited bidding.

In the context of stock trading on a stock exchange, the bid price is the highest price a buyer of a stock is willing to pay for a share of that given stock. The bid price displayed in most quote services is the highest bid price in the market. The ask or offer price on the other hand is the lowest price a seller of a particular stock is willing to sell a share of that given stock. The ask or offer price displayed is the lowest ask/offer price in the market (Stock market).

See also

• Ask price
• Bidding fee scheme
• Call for bids
• Unique bid auction

External links

• Securities and Exchange Commission definition of "bid price"

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