Float

Float

Currency: Exchange rate policy that does not limit the range of the market rate.
Equities: Number of shares of a corporation that are outstanding and available for trading by the public, excluding insiders or restricted stock on a when-issued basis. A stock's volatility is inversely correlated to its float.

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float

1. Funds that are on deposit at two institutions at the same time because of inefficiencies in the collection system. This situation permits a person or firm to earn extra income because the two institutions are paying interest on the same funds. As an example, a person writes a check on a money market fund in order to make a deposit in a local financial institution. Until that check gets back to the bank on which it was written (a transit often entailing two or three days), the investor receives interest on his or her funds from both institutions. See also fail float.

2. The number of shares in public hands and available for trading. Institutional investors require that a security have a large float before they will take a position in it. The large float guards against a substantial price change in the security while the institution is buying. Also called floating supply.

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float

To permit a country's currency to change freely in value against foreign currencies.

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Float

1. The number of shares of a publicly-traded company available to trade. It is important to note that this may be different from the shares outstanding: some shareholders may buy and hold, reducing the size of the float. The size of a float greatly affects a stock's volatility. If a float is small, any number of activities could affect greatly its price, especially a single large order to buy or sell it. This would greatly alter the number of shares available to trade, creating too little or too much supply and therefore drive the price up or down. A large float tends to have less volatility because large orders do not affect the supply as much. It is also called a floating supply. See also: Technical condition of a market.

2. In foreign exchange, a currency that is not pegged to another currency's value.

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Float. In investment terms, a float is the number of outstanding shares a corporation has available for trading.

If there is a small float, stock prices tend to be volatile, since one large trade could significantly affect the availability and therefore the price of these stocks. If there is a large float, stock prices tend to be more stable.

In banking, the float refers to the time lag between your depositing a check in the bank and the day the funds become available for use. For example, if you deposit a check on Monday, and you can withdraw the cash on Friday, the float is four days and works to the bank's advantage.

Float is also the period that elapses from the time you write a check until it clears your account, which can work to your advantage. However, as checks are increasingly cleared electronically at the point of deposit, this float is disappearing.

In a credit account, float is the amount of time between the date you charge a purchase and the date the payment is due. If you have paid your previous bill in full and on time, you don't owe a finance charge on the amount of the purchase during the float.