It's a way of purchasing a stock. Whatever.com is volatile. On any given day lately, it trades between $18 and $20. You have no idea if this thing is going to go to $40 or $4, but you want to roll the dice and own it. You want it now. Right now.
So you call your broker and you instruct her to purchase 1,000 shares of whatever.com at the market. The broker has a screen in front of her, with a live feed of market prices. She tells you that the market price is $18.38 at this moment, and that's the price at which you've just bought whatever.com. You bought it at a price that was at the market.
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Finance: What are Limit Order, Sell Limi...4 Views
Finance a la shmoop what is a limit order? you want to sell a thousand shares
of Colonel electric it was demoted after they cut their dividend the shares have [Scissors cuts dividend in half]
been trading wildly between $15 and $25 a share you don't want to feel like a
moron for having sold them at fifteen bucks when six weeks later they kissed
25 with tongue so what do you do well you put in a limit order that is you put
a limit of a minimum price of 25 bucks a share for Colonel Electric such that [Pile of stocks appear]
those shares will simply sit in your account unsold maybe forever until
somebody out in the wild blue yonder of Stockland is willing to pay twenty five [Woman standing at a colonel electric stand]
dollars or more for the shares where you have a minimum price limit of 25 bucks a
share in your order so here's to hoping they sell and don't get further demoted [Man carries stock into car]
Sargent Electric is just a place you don't want to go
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