. . . in an analogous way as a lump is a unit of gold. Notice that neither the word "lump" nor the word "share" has an inherently defined size. The size of the unit is arbitrary.

The stock of a company is the total ownership of the corporation. In Arabic, when we want to precisely express this meaning, we say MAKHZOON مَخزون

In common parlance, however, people use the word "stock" (not "stocks") when they talk about the shares they own in a particular company. They would say, for instance, "I have 100 shares of Intel stock," which makes perfect sense, except that even people who use the expression are not always perfectly clear on what theya are saying.

Arabic is fortuante in not having a word for "stock" that would fit such a sentence, as strange as this may sound. In a context like this, Arabic is much clearer than English. We simply refer to shares, as follows:

One share is SAHM سـهم

The plural is AS-HUM أسـهم

But "stock" as used in the previous illustration is also called أسـهم

For instance we say SOOQ AL-AS-HUM سـوق الأسـهم

For "100 shares of Intel stock" we say

مائة سـهم من أسـهم إنتل

And so on.

When using the plural form "stocks" the reference is to shares of different companies. Example:

I have only a few stocks = I own shares in only a few companies (the number of shares in each company could be large or small). In Arabic you would say,

لديَّ أسـهم في شـركات قلائل

And so on.


Fuad

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Note added at 2002-06-02 02:54:04 (GMT)
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Addressing the phrase \"PepsiCo grant price is $30\":

The translation I suggest would be:

السـعر الممنوح لأسـهم بيبسي 30 دولاراً

Grant Price is defined as \"the price per share which you must pay to the issuer to exercise the option. The grant price is usually set at the fair market value of the company\'s stock on the date of grant -- also called the Exercise Price.\"

References:
http://personal100.fidelity.com/products/stockoptions/glossa...