Bid Price

Definition:
When you are selling your shares of a security, the bid price is what the buyer is willing to pay for your shares. This Bid Price offers you an exact price of how much you can sell your shares for. The Last Price offers you a look at what price the last trades were made; which is not sufficient to give you a price a buyer is willing to pay. Bid Price and Last Price are often different.  On the other side of the market, even though you are willing to offer a seller a bid price, he/she will only sell at the Ask Price. The Ask Price is the price at which a seller is willing to let go of her shares. More specifically, this is the price you will buy your stocks at.  Finally, the Bid Size comes hand-in-hand with the Bid Price. This is the amount of shares a buyer is willing to pay for a specific amount of shares. This gives the seller a better view on where they stand.

Example:
$23.53 x 1,000 is an example of a bid.  This means that an investor is asking to purchase 1,000 shares at the price of $23.53.  The transaction will be completed if a seller is willing to sell that security at that price. Another example would be a Market bid for 1,000 shares. That means that the investor is willing to take 1,000 shares at the current market price.

Click Here to see all Beginner Stock Trading Articles