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Free float
The shares that are available to trade, leaving out stakes held by founders, governments or parent companies.
Many index providers, including FTSE/JSE for the Top 40, weight companies by free-float market value so that shares nobody can buy don’t count.
More terms
- Price to earnings (P/E)The share price divided by the profit per share: how many years of today’s profit you pay for.
- Dividend yieldThe dividends paid over the last year as a percentage of today’s share price.
- Ex-dividend dateThe first day a share trades without its next dividend.
- Payout ratioThe share of its profit a company pays out as dividends.
- Market value (market capitalisation)The share price times the number of shares: what the market says the whole company is worth.
- IndexOne number that tracks a basket of shares, so you can see how a whole market or sector is doing.
- Every term ↗
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