Winners of the primary election will be on the ballot for the Nov. 4 general election. For counties other than Marion, results are limited to county-wide, city and town races.
There s the bid price, which is the price another investor would be willing to buy shares of a stock for. And then there s the ask price, which is the price you d have to pay if you wanted to buy the stock. The ask price is generally higher than the bid price, but sometimes they can be virtually the same. Most financial Web sites usually display both the bid and ask prices but give the ask price more prominence. Bid and ask prices aren t unique to stocks. It s no different than a car. If you go to a car dealership and offer to sell your car, you ll be given a bid price. Similarly, if you want to buy the car you ll almost certainly receive a higher offer price.
But if you went to the dealer to buy the same car, the dealer would sell it to you for $2,220. That's the ask price. The spread is the difference between the two: $1,545 in the case of the car. The same goes for stocks. If you're looking to sell a stock, a broker will offer to buy it for one price, the bid. And if you're looking to buy it, the broker will offer to sell it to you for another, higher ask price. The spread is the broker's profit. Luckily for everyone, other than brokers, the difference between bid and ask prices has gotten quite small. For instance, the bid on General Electric stock recently was $32.77 and the ask $32.79. The more frequently a stock trades, the closer the bid and ask get. In other words, the spread gets smaller.