Investing Terms "S"

A B C D E F G H I J-L M N O P Q-R S T U V W-Z

Standard and Poor’s - is the world's foremost provider of independent credit ratings, indices, risk evaluation, investment research, data, and valuations.

S&P 500 Composite Index - index of 500 widely held common stocks that is commonly used to measure the performance of the market overall.

S&P Rating - rating service provided by Standard and Poor’s that indicates the amount of risk involved with different securities.

Savings Bond - a U.S. government bond with principal amounts up to $10,000.

Screen Stocks - search of stocks that meet predetermined criteria.

Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC) - federal agency that regulates the U.S. financial markets.

Sell Limit Order - an order to a broker to sell a specified quantity of a security at or above a specified price.

Sell Order - an order by an investor to a broker to sell a particular holding.

Selling Short - borrowing shares of stock from a broker and then selling in the expectation that the price of the stock will decline.

Settlement Date – date a trade is settled. Settlement is currently three business days after the trade.

Shareholder - owner of shares in a company or corporation.

Short-Term Gain - a profit or loss realized from the sale of securities held for less than a year.

Sideways Market - stock prices change little over a period of time.

Simple Moving Average – the expected value calculated at any time over a past period of fixed length.

Small-Cap - designating a company, or a mutual fund that invests in companies, with a market capitalization of under $1 billion.

Soft market - a market in which more people want to sell than want to buy.

SPDRs – are shares in a trust that owns stocks in the same proportion as that represented by the S&P 500 stock index.

Stock Split - companies split their outstanding shares into more shares.

Stochastics - computerized measuring tool that’s displays overbought and oversold conditions in a stock over a certain time period.

Stock - the shares of a particular company or corporation.

Stock Certificate - a certificate evidencing ownership of one or more shares of stock in a corporation.

Stock Dividend - a form of dividend collected by a stockholder in extra shares of the corporation's stock rather than in cash.

Stock Exchanges - organizations approved and regulated by the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Stock Index - index based on a statistical compilation of the share prices of a number of representative stocks.

Stock Market - a particular market where stocks and bonds are traded.

Stop-Limit Order - a stop-limit order to buy must have a stop-limit price above the market price. A stop-limit order to sell must have a stop-limit price below the security's market price.

Stop-Loss Order - an order to a broker to sell when the price of a security falls to a designated level.

Stop Order - an order to buy or sell when a definite price is reached.

Stopped Out - purchase or sale that is executed under a stop order.

Support Level - a price level below which it is supposedly difficult for a security to fall.