eli5 How is the ticker price of a stock decided when there are multiple trades of a stock happening at the same time?

Question

eli5 How is the ticker price of a stock decided when there are multiple trades of a stock happening at the same time?

In: Other

Answer 1

There isn’t one price for a stock. There’s a bid price (what someone is willing to pay) and an ask price (what someone is willing to sell) when those overlap trades are executed. The last price is the price of the last executed trade. The last price is what’s typically shown in the ticker.

Source: fintech software engineer for over 15 years.