Ask Matt: Is the ask price for a stock negotiable?

— -- Q: Must you always pay the ask price when buying a stock or is it a negotiable price?

A: Why pay retail prices? That's a popular slogan by many discount retailers and dollar stores. Buying that resin lawn troll, though, is very different than buying a stock.

Consumers have grown so used to finding bargains during the recession, it's natural investors such as you would like to do the same with stocks. Yet, while the stock market is all about electronic haggling over the price of assets, driving a hard bargain works differently on Wall Street.

Prices of assets are constantly moving during the trading day. Buyers and sellers, powered by computers, are constantly putting in their bid and ask prices, which are the prices they're willing to buy or sell stock for.

At the moment you enter a trade to buy or sell a stock, that's the price. That's it. Your order will be filled at the best bid or ask. It's done automatically. There's no dickering or negotiation. That's the price, which is set by the matching of buying and selling by computers and traders.

With that said, there are some ways investors can have some control of their pricing parameters. The biggest tool investors have are limit orders.

You can enter a limit order to sell a stock, for instance, that indicates you won't sell until the stock hits a certain price or better. For instance, you can enter a limit order to sell a stock at $30, and if the stock is $28, the broker won't sell unless it rises to $30 or more. You can buy using limits, saying you won't buy unless a stock falls to a certain price or lower.

Limit orders aren't the same thing as negotiating the market price for stock. But they are a tool investors can use if they're not happy with the going price for a stock they're looking to buy or sell.

Matt Krantz is a financial markets reporter at USA TODAY and author of Investing Online for Dummies and Fundamental Analysis for Dummies. He answers a different reader question every weekday in his Ask Matt column at money.usatoday.com. To submit a question, e-mail Matt at mkrantz@usatoday.com. Follow Matt on Twitter at: twitter.com/mattkrantz