Tick
Rather than conjuring up images of insects or nervous disorders, the word “tick” is used here to describe both the minimum unit of trading (formerly 1/8 for a stock and 1/32 for a bond) and any individual trade. A ticker is simply a series of ticks (trades).
You might hear the phrase “5-tick stop.” This means that the stop price set for the trade has been set 5 ticks or trading units below the purchase price. In the U.S. stock market, that could mean 5/8 point. Typically, the term is used for markets that trade in very small units, such as bond trading in 1/32 or .01 or currencies trading in .0001.
Another meaning for tick is as a breadth indicator for the stock market. In this context, tick is the real-time sum of all stocks whose last ...
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