trade
noun
the act or process of buying, selling, or exchanging commodities, at either wholesale or retail, within a country or between countries.
had been trading
-
past perfect progressiveof trade.past perfect progressive
Used to describe an action that was ongoing continuously in the past up until another past event interrupted it.
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
They had been trading higher than that, in the neighborhood of $26, when reports of the eBay takeover plan first surfaced.
From MarketWatch ● Jun. 2, 2026
The largest digital asset had been trading above $90,000 last week before plunging on Sunday and into Monday to near $85,000.
From Barron's ● Dec. 2, 2025
Goldman hired Osmin in 2010 from Merrill Lynch, where he had been trading Latin American interest-rate products.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 28, 2025
It first appeared on June 27, 2021, in a thread on the WoodenBoat forum, a corner of the internet where fans had been trading reflections about Bourdain for years.
From Salon ● Jun. 20, 2025
When gold had been trading around $650 an ounce for the past two years, an option to buy it for $2,000 an ounce anytime during the next ten years might well be badly underpriced.
From "The Big Short" by Michael Lewis
