It's not actually zero.

There some sells at the minimum price of $0.0001. But nobody is actually buying them. There is no room in the order book for buys. No trading is taking place.

Some stock APIs report this as $0.00, others report it as $0.0001. Both views are correct, you could buy some shares shares at $0.0001, but you can't sell any.

Me too. If it's $0 can I "buy" a million shares of it?

No you can't. A bid/offer of 0x1/0.05x25 could be what you see (i.e. 25 shares available at the offer price of 0.05 and 0 shares available at 0 - no one wants this shit) on these garbage-quality companies. So there's no one bidding on it.

So you could come in, place a bid at 0.025 and the updated OB would be like 0.025x1/0.05x25. If there's any autoquoters from the adversaries, then ok immediately they might throw some more offers up at like 0.045x100, since the interpretation of some bids coming in means that they can fill the orders at the tighter spread

Your first example quote has an unfortunate typo. 0x1 should be 0x0

yeah, press F to pay respects. Hopefully most are able to overcome the complexity of reconciling 0x0 == 0x1

I have the same question, but think we can answer it by reasoning.

If it could be purchased for $0, only the first stock would cost $0, and the price would then rise, but how would we calculate the price increase for a stock purchased at $0 that is now worth $0.1? So that's not it.

If it were not for sale, why would it be listed?

I think it's the third, and I'd further guess that any bid for the stock will be accepted, thus setting the price.

I thought the price was what someone was a rough idea of what people are willing to pay for it. So if it’s $0.00, why would you ever pay more than that? And if no one buys it for a penny or more, it’s “price” won’t go up.

In case it’s not clear: I only know the price is what I pay for it. I don’t fully understand where it comes from.

My understanding is that for each tradable asset, there are two prices: Bids and asks; and trades will only happen when asks and bids exist at the same price point.

Most prices we see on tickers are the lowest asks, I believe.

Most commonly, price you see on ticker quotes is the price the stock last traded at; i.e., the last price at which a buyer and seller exchange money for equity.

Oh, right. That makes sense. Hence it's that magical point where an ask equals a bid, and thus: trade!

So doesn't that essentially mean that at the point of measurement—that is, a trade occurring—the price is both lowest ask and highest bid?

Yes, a trade represents an instant in time when a potential buyer and a potential seller agree on a price. The highest bid matches the lowest ask, and then the exchange "matching engine" generates a trade from them.

Instantaneously afterward, the highest remaining bid will be below the lowest ask.

When anyone talks about "the price" of a stock it is an approximation of some sort. Probably they mean the last traded price; maybe the midpoint (bid+ask)/2; maybe the symbol is in the middle of an auction and they mean the auction clearing price.

There's an order book listing buy and sell orders at a variety of prices clustered around big/ask, but the actual bid/ask numbers shown are a standardized summary view of the order book