Beginning Stock Jargon Explained

GNK, DIS, ADVDX, AMZ, MCD - even if you invest in the stock market, you may not know what these abbreviations stand for, but it is important that you get a sense of the ticker and which companies are going across the bottom of the screen on your favorite financial news source.
The stock market has a language all its own and knowledge of the jargon can make or break an investor.Starting with the easiest words, let's review some of what a stock market investor needs to know.

The stock market has a language all its own and knowledge of the jargon can make or break an investor.Starting with the easiest words, let's review some of what a stock market investor needs to know.
Buy - this is easy enough. Buying stock requires a buy order.Usually the buy order comes with a dollar amount or a specific number of shares to purchase.A buyer can buy $300 worth of stock, or they can buy 30 shares.The buyer may also specify at what price to buy the stock.If the stock never reaches that price, no shares will be purchased.It is important for the buyer to know how he or she is going to purchase the stock and at what price.Buying at market value is a bad idea unless the investor is sure that stock will only go up in value.
Sell - another easy one.An investor who owns stock may want to get rid of or dump it.This is called selling.It may be done because the investor has made enough money on the stock and has reached his risk aversion threshold, or it may be done because the investor believes that the price is going to fall, or that the company is going to fail.There are other reasons to sell - the investor needs the money for example.
Trade - Even though they are called stock traders, the only real trading goes on "on the floor."Investors do not trade stock, they buy and sell.
Brokerage Firm - this is a business that makes it money by helping other people to invest their money in the stock market.They usually charge a commission and sometimes a per transaction fee.They make money on every transaction whether or not the investor is making money on the transaction.Brokerage companies have become a popular internet business.They are able to operate more cheaply and give individuals the opportunity to make their own decisions about investing without having to talk to anyone.
Dividend - this is the amount of money that the stock pays at a certain time of the year.Some stocks pay a dividend yearly, some quarterly and some monthly.The stockholder must own the stock by a certain date in order to get the dividend, and dividends are entirely voluntary on the part of the company.That means the company chooses how much and when or if to pay.Most companies work hard to never pay a lower dividend than what investors expect, but sometimes financial issues may cause a company to lower or cut its dividend completely.
Symbol - This is the letter combination that a company is goes by on the ticker.The symbol was useful during the early days of stock when everything was reported over a ticker and printed on a ticker tape.These long, thin sheets of paper made use of the shorthand to keep the information transferred easy to transmit and easy to read.This holdover from a bygone era is still useful in that more information can be transferred in a shorter amount of time as it rolls across the bottom of the screen.Incidentally, the paper from the ticker is what people use to give a ticker tape parade.
These are just a few of the words that a beginning investor should know.