Help with understanding stock listing information on Yahoo Finance?

Question

I was browsing yahoo finance and looking at stock quotes. As I only recently started to research investing, I am confused as to what certain things mean.

For example, on this stock http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=SPWR

the BID is what someone is willing to pay and how many shares they would like to buy?

And on this one, http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=TASR the ASK is what the seller wants/can sell?

If I chose to, could I buy less stock than what is being asked?

On other stocks, the ASK and BID is listed as N/A (so does that mean I can buy as many shares as I want to?)

Are those examples of dealer vs auction markets that I've read about?

Thank you for bearing with me, and your time.

Answer 1

Don't pay much attention to bid/ask when regular markets are closed.  Some people throw wild limit prices out there that may pop up after actual trades happened.

You can buy sell as many shares as you want, it is just that if you enter a market order for more shares than being offered, some or all may be at a different price (if someone else acts first).  Or if you try to trade more shares with a limit order than being offered, you might get a partial fill or none at all if another order was ahead of you and the price moves the wrong way from your limit.

Answer 2

You can buy the stock at the ask price, and the volume is up to you.

Answer 3

For every stock there is a bid and ask price, AND the highest bid and lowest ask price is what makes the current market for that stock.

If you want to buy, you would have to pay the ask price since there are people willing to sell it at that price but others are trying to bid it lower by bidding at a lower price,

If you want to sell, you would have to sell it at bid price since there are people willing to buy it at that price, but others are asking more for it at a higher price.

If you want to bid at a lower price, you can put your order in for it, this does not mean that you will ever get it executed, but if the market drops you will buy it at the lower price.

When you see N/A for either the bid or the ask, or both, it means there are no current bids or offerings for the stock OR the vendor (Yahoo) did not pick them up.   In an exchange traded stock you will never see n/a for the bid or the ask since the specialist must make a bid and an ask.

All the market (stocks, bonds, options, commodities) are auction markets, there are always bids and offers, you may not like them but they are there.

AND the highest bid and the lowest offering always make the current maket.

Here's some websites that may help you

http://www.thestreet.com

http://www.brokerage101.com/

http://www.1source4stocks.com/

http://www.decisionpoint.com/TAcourse/TA...

http://stockcharts.com/

Good luck, keep studying or asking