Plain-English definitions of the terms used across BeStock stock pages.
Terms27
52-week range
The lowest and highest price the stock has traded at over the past year.
Analyst consensus
The average recommendation across Wall Street analysts covering a stock, typically buy / hold / sell.
Bollinger bands
Bands drawn two standard deviations above and below a 20-day average. Price outside them marks an unusually stretched move.
Days to cover
How many days of average trading volume it would take short-sellers to buy back all their borrowed shares.
Dividend yield
Annual dividend payments divided by the current share price, as a percentage.
Drawdown
The fall from a previous peak to a later low, as a percentage.
EPS
Earnings per share: net profit divided by shares outstanding.
Economic moat
A durable competitive advantage that protects a company's profits from competitors.
Fair value estimate
An independent research firm's estimate of what a stock is worth based on projected cash flows, to compare against the market price.
Free cash flow
Cash a business generates from operations after paying for the equipment and facilities it needs to keep running.
Implied earnings move
The size of move options are pricing for the day after an earnings report. Compare it with the stock's actual past reactions to judge whether options look cheap or expensive.
Implied volatility
How large a price swing the options market is pricing in for a stock, expressed as a percentage. It varies a lot stock-to-stock and isn't a prediction of direction, just of magnitude.
Institutional ownership
The share of a company owned by large investors such as funds and pension plans, rather than individuals.
MACD
Moving Average Convergence Divergence: the gap between a fast and a slow average, compared with its own smoothed signal line.
Market cap
Share price multiplied by shares outstanding: the total value the market places on the company.
Moving average
The average closing price over a set number of days (such as 50 or 200), which smooths daily noise and shows the trend.
Open interest
The number of options contracts at a given strike and expiry that are currently outstanding (bought but not yet closed out or exercised).
Operating margin
Operating profit as a percentage of revenue: how much of each sales dollar is left after the costs of running the business.
P/B ratio
Price divided by book value (assets minus liabilities) per share.
P/E ratio
Price divided by earnings per share. How many dollars investors pay for each dollar of annual profit; higher usually means the market expects more growth.
P/S ratio
Market value divided by annual revenue. Useful when profits are small or negative, but it ignores margins.
Price target
An analyst's estimate of where a stock's price will be, usually over the next 12 months.
RSI
Relative Strength Index: a 0-100 momentum gauge. Readings above 70 are conventionally called overbought and below 30 oversold.
Return on equity
Net profit divided by shareholders' equity. High readings can also come from heavy buybacks or debt shrinking the equity base.
Short interest
The percentage of a company's available shares that have been sold short (borrowed and sold, betting the price falls).
Short-sale volume
Shares sold short during a trading day as a share of that day's total volume. It includes market-maker activity, so it is noisier than short interest.
Volatility
How much a price moves around. We quote 30-day realized volatility, annualized, from daily returns.