How do stock prices work?

I know that stock prices are determined by supply and demand, but what does the price on the news ticker mean? Is that the price at which is was last traded?

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Satch May 26, 2010 at 6:14 pm

That is the current price of the stock. But when you go to trade your broker will have an ‘offer price’ (what you buy at) and ‘bid price’ (what you sell at). So if stock price is 200p the ‘offer price’ may be 202p and ‘bid price’ 198p. The spread varies, th spread is how the brokers make money.

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