holding

The word “holding” means something owned, especially investments such as stocks, property, or bonds. In plain terms, what someone owns (in finance), a court's decision (in law), or an illegal grab (in sports).

“Holding” is pronounced HOH-dihng ([ˈhoʊɫdɪŋ] in IPA).

Here is “holding” used in a sentence: “Her largest holding was a stake in a tech company.”

“Holding” is a noun.

“Holding” is a very common word in modern English.

“Holding” has 3 distinct senses listed in this dictionary. The most common is: something owned, especially investments such as stocks, property, or bonds.

A share is a single unit of ownership in a company. Your holding is the total amount you own — for example, five hundred shares in a firm make up your holding in it. More broadly, a holding can be any owned investment, whether shares, bonds, or property.

Holdings can include company shares or stocks, government and corporate bonds, property and real estate, cash and money-market funds, and stakes in funds or other businesses. Together, a person's or institution's holdings make up their portfolio — the full collection of investments they own.

A holding company is a business whose main purpose is to own shares in other companies rather than to produce goods or services itself. Through these holdings it controls or influences its subsidiaries. It is a distinct sense of the word, but it grows from the same idea of something owned.

If you own shares in a company, that stake is a holding; a pension fund's holdings might include property, bonds, and shares across many firms. The word points to the investments someone owns, whether a single asset or a large, varied portfolio.