What does the slash mean

[oaksie100]

when you see a live stock or index price like this:

1256/50

what does the /50 part mean. My figures may seem out if they are directly related i apologise for this but as u can see i am unaware of any relation as i am asking the question,

Thanks for your help

Tom

 

[frugi]

It probably means you can buy the stock at 1256 or sell it at 1250. It is called the bid-offer spread. It's usually expressed t'other way round, i.e 1250/1256

 

[BBB]

Could be the size

 

[ardhill]

I rember looking at a chart programme somewhere that gave a figure something like that.

It was as BBB said, the size. The price was the last price and the figure after the slash was the size of the sale. So if I had just made the last purchase of a stock at $45.21 of 100 shares, it would read some thing like this:

45.21/100