If you are new to stock trading, welcome! It is a wild, exciting and dangerous world you are stepping into, so it's best to have a strong grasp of the basics.

Let's start with the stock symbol. What exactly is this? For example, let's look at HOG. This is the symbol/ticker symbol/stock symbol for Harley Davidson. (Perhaps you've heard of them...) The symbol HOG represents Harley Davidson in the stock market. MCD is the symbol that represents McDonald's. Symbols are used because it would be very confusing if the entire names of companies were used. This just makes it short and sweet.

Shares. What is a share? Let's imagine a pie cut up into slices. A share of a stock is similar to a slice of pie in that a share is like a slice of a company. The amount of shares available for a specific stock depends on many factors of the company, but to put it simply, the number of slices in a pie vary on the size and shape of the pie. Also, when you buy a share, you are buying a little tiny bit of that company. So this would explain why it's called a share...it's a share of the company. You are SHARING the company with others!

Market price. This is the price that a stock is currently going for...whether you are buying or selling. This would be similar if you were to go to...say...Red Lobster and want to order their fresh fish of the day. You'd ask them for the market price of that fish....what that fish is selling for at markets right now. For a stock, the market price is what you can quickly buy or sell a stock for.

Ask Price or Ask. The ask price is most often higher than the market price. This is the price that others are trying to sell their stock for...they are ASKING that much for their shares.

Bid Price or Bid. Just as the ask price is what people what to sell their stocks for, the bid is what people want to buy the stocks for, therefore they are placing a BID for the stock.

Market Order. This is an order put in for market price. You aren't placing an Ask or Bid price, you just want to sell your stock now.

Limit Order. This is where you would place an order for Bid or Ask price. If you don't need to sell your stock right away or want to buy/sell your stock for a certain price, you'd put in this kind of order. This says, "Buy/Sell only when X stock reaches X dollars".

I'm Brynn Phoenix and I've been trading stocks for over 10 years! Please visit my blog for more helpful trading articles and to view my personal stock trades! http://simplestocktrading.wordpress.com/ (Yes, I post every trade there!)