Offer (Ask)

Offer refers to the price at which the sellers are willing to sell their shares. In most cases offer is the highest price that a buyer is willing to pay for a particular asset while on the other hand it is the lowest price at which the seller is interested to sell the asset.

In the financial world, you will find various types of offers and each of them comes with the combination of different features. In case of stock exchange, if a trader is willing to buy shares then s/he has to pay the ask price (the higher price). On the other hand, the trader is going to receive the bid price (the lower price) when it comes to selling shares. There will always be a gap between the bid and ask price which is known as the “spread”.

The term "offer" is used in other sectors too. Say for example, while purchasing a house. In that case a buyer who is interested to purchase a house will come up with an offering price which is the highest amount that the buyer is willing to pay for the asset. However, the offer may change if another interested buyer gets involved with a different offer. In that case both buyers will continue to bid until the seller agrees to accept a certain offer which is usually the highest offer made by either one of the buyers where the other buyer is not interested or capable of making a better offer than that.