Stock In Trade

What is “stock-in-trade”?

Stock in trade is the inventory of goods, and merchandise, held by a business entity for the purpose of using them for sales and other processing, making salable goods or for selling to the customers with an intention [in the case of a for profit business] to make profit from such operations and deals. It is, in other words, the collection of merchandise maintained for sale.

Black’s Law Dictionary defines “stock in trade” as “[t]he inventory carried by a retail. 1 business for sale in the ordinary course of business.” (8th ed. 2004). Rituals of transgression, sensationalist violation and titillating naughtiness became the stock-in-trade of popular news reporting in the late nineteenth century.