Stocks: Market Capitalization

Often referred to as "market cap," it's the total value of a company's stock in the marketplace. If you take the share price and multiply it by the total number of shares of stock issued by the company, you get the market capitalization. A stock with a high price and a lot of shares issued will be a large cap stock, while a company with a low price and relatively few shares issued will be a small cap or a micro-cap stock.

Another way to look at this is to think of large, medium, small and micro companies.

Micro-cap — Very small companies with a market cap between $50 million and $300 million
Small-cap — Small companies with a market cap between $300 million and $2 billion
Mid-cap — Established companies with reliable track records with a market cap between $2 billion and $10 billion
Large-cap — The giants of our economy, often called "blue chips," with a market cap over $10 billion

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