What it means
When a buyer and seller agree a trade on an exchange or a reporting system, the trade is recorded and published with its price, quantity and time. That published record is the print.
Traders watch prints to see where trading is happening and how large the deals are. A series of prints builds a picture of market activity.
Many large prints at rising prices suggest strong buying, while big prints at falling prices suggest heavy selling. Some prints are unusual, such as a block trade (a very large deal negotiated away from the main order book), and traders pay particular attention to them.
The word has a second meaning in economics and company reporting. People talk about a hot or cool inflation print, a weak jobs print or a strong earnings print, meaning the number just released compared with expectations.
Markets often react not to the level of the number but to whether it beat or missed forecasts. For finance professionals the distinction between print and quote matters.
A quote is an offer to buy or sell at a price, while a print is a trade that actually happened. Prints are the basis for volume-weighted average price, closing prices and many benchmark calculations.
Care is needed with bad prints, which are erroneous trade records caused by errors or glitches. Exchanges may cancel them after review, and analysts should check unusual prints before drawing conclusions.
A single odd print can distort an average or trigger automated trading, so data cleaning is a routine task. Prints also feed regulatory and benchmark reporting.
Closing prices, index levels and fair value measurements in company accounts draw on trade records, so accurate prints support reliable financial reporting. Finance teams that value securities each quarter often rely on the last observable print as one input.
In practice
Real-world examples.
Example
A trader sees a 500,000-share print at $48.10 appear on the tape for a mid-sized company. She checks the news to see whether a large investor is building or selling a position. Large prints at the ask often show urgency to buy.
Example
A government statistics office releases monthly inflation figures, and the print comes in half a percentage point above forecasts. Bond prices fall within minutes as investors expect higher interest rates. Markets react to the surprise, not just to the level of the figure.
Example
A treasury analyst reviewing a day's trading in a bond finds one print at a price far from the rest. She flags it as a possible error and excludes it from her average until the exchange confirms it.
Formula
Calculation
Volume-weighted average price (VWAP) = Sum of (Price x Quantity) for each print / Total quantity.
Three prints occur in a share during the morning: 1,000 shares at $20.00, 3,000 shares at $20.20 and 1,000 shares at $20.40. The values are $20.00 x 1,000 = $20,000, $20.20 x 3,000 = $60,600 and $20.40 x 1,000 = $20,400, which total $101,000.
The total quantity is 1,000 + 3,000 + 1,000 = 5,000 shares. VWAP is $101,000 / 5,000 = $20.20. The simple average of the three prices is also $20.20 here, but only because the two outer prints are the same size. If the $20.40 print had been 3,000 shares, the values would total $20,000 + $60,600 + $61,200 = $141,800 over 7,000 shares, giving a VWAP of about $20.26 while the simple average stayed at $20.20.Case study
Seen in the real world.
Ridgeline Securities is a fictional brokerage whose trading desk uses prints to benchmark its execution. In an illustrative week, a client complained that a large order had been filled at a poor price.
The desk compared the fill against the day's prints and calculated the VWAP. The client's average price was within two cents of VWAP, which showed the order had been executed fairly given market conditions.
The fictional desk shared the analysis with the client, who accepted the explanation. The episode illustrates why prints are the factual record used to test the quality of trades.
Watch out
Common mistakes.
- Confusing a print with a quote, when a quote is only an offer and a print is a completed trade.
- Taking one unusual print as proof of a trend, when it may be a block trade or an error.
- Reading an economic print without comparing it with forecasts, because markets react to surprises.
Questions
People also ask.
What is a bad print?
It is an erroneous trade record, often caused by a data glitch or human error, which the exchange may cancel.
Why do traders watch prints?
They show real trades, which reveal prices, sizes and the pattern of buying and selling.
What does an inflation print mean?
It means the latest published inflation figure, which investors compare with expectations.
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