Buy

To purchase an asset; taking a long position.

Buy

To take ownership of some asset in exchange for some monetary remuneration. Buying may take any of several forms. In a cash purchase, the buyer gives cash or a cash equivalent immediately in exchange for the asset. In a credit sale, the buyer takes ownership immediately in exchange for future payment, often with interest. An example of buying is a simple transaction involving widgets. If the buyer is willing to pay $2 per widget and the seller wishes to sell 100 widgets, then the seller gives to the buyer 100 widgets and, in their place, receives $200. See also: Sale.

buy

A bargain-priced asset. For example, an analyst may feel that a particular firm owns valuable assets overlooked or undervalued by the financial community. In such an instance, the firm's stock is considered a buy.

buy

To purchase a security or other asset. Compare sell.

Wall Street Words: An A to Z Guide to Investment Terms for Today's Investor by David L. Scott. Copyright © 2003 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. All rights reserved.

make

buy

the decision by a firm on whether to make a component or product itself or to buy it from an external supplier (see OUTSOURCING). The decision will depend upon the combined production costs and TRANSACTION COSTS of the alternatives. Sometimes a firm may adopt mixes of the two policies, producing some quantity of the product itself and buying the remainder, depending upon the relative costs of the sources and security of supply considerations. See TRANSACTION for a more detailed discussion. See INTERNALIZATION, VERTICAL INTEGRATION.