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The bid–ask spread (also bid–offer or bid/ask and buy/sell in the case of a market maker) is the difference between the prices quoted (either by a single market maker or in a limit order book) for an immediate sale and an immediate purchase for stocks, futures contracts, options, or currency pairs in some auction scenario.
Conversely, markets with a thin or narrow bid-ask spread are typically highly liquid and have plentiful buy and sell orders from traders. Widely traded stocks, such as Apple, Microsoft and Amazon ...
In finance, a spread trade (also known as a relative value trade) is the simultaneous purchase of one security and sale of a related security, called legs, as a unit.Spread trades are usually executed with options or futures contracts as the legs, but other securities are sometimes used.
A market maker or liquidity provider is a company or an individual that quotes both a buy and a sell price in a tradable asset held in inventory, hoping to make a profit on the difference, which is called the bid–ask spread or turn. [1] This stabilizes the market, reducing price variation by setting a trading price range for the asset.
The market liquidity of stock depends on whether it is listed on an exchange and the level of buyer interest. The bid/ask spread is one indicator of a stock's liquidity. For liquid stocks, such as Microsoft or General Electric, the spread is often just a few pennies – much less than 1% of the price. For illiquid stocks, the spread can be much ...
For example, a bull spread constructed from calls (e.g., long a 50 call, short a 60 call) combined with a bear spread constructed from puts (e.g., long a 60 put, short a 50 put) has a constant payoff of the difference in exercise prices (e.g. 10) assuming that the underlying stock does not go ex-dividend before the expiration of the options.
A ladder can be seen as a modification of a bull spread or a bear spread with an additional option: for instance, a bear call ladder is equivalent to a bear call spread with an additional long call. A bull put ladder is equivalent to a bull put spread with an additional long put.
Scalping is the shortest time frame in trading and it exploits small changes in currency prices. [4] Scalpers attempt to act like traditional market makers or specialists. To make the spread means to buy at the Bid price and sell at the Ask price, in order to gain the bid/ask difference.