What are Stocks?
What are Stocks? Stocks are shares of a business. When you purchase them you are purchasing shares of a company. There are over 12,000 of them to trade in the Stock Market. Businesses control the amount of shares available for public purchase.
The public investors' trades stocks by purchasing from investors who believe the stock is going down or changing direction. You must have sellers and buyers in order to complete a transaction. Your trade takes place by using brokers like Charles Schwab, Etrade, Fidelity, Options Express and Think or Swim, to name a few. There are two ways in which a Trade can take place.
You can either trade them online or you can trade them on the stock market exchange floor.
Stocks can either be bought if you are bullish or
shorted
if you are bearish. They can be bought with or without
margin
Experienced investors use well defined techniques to determine which stocks to purchase, when to buy and when to sell.
Experienced traders also realize there are times when their stocks or the market may have some surprises or sudden changes. Seasoned Traders keep their emotions in check,
Psychology
plays a big role in your investing.
News, rumors, mergers, splits, earnings and stock buy backs tend to make the stocks move making the stocks volatile during this time. Playing on these events can be one of the most dangerous strategies. It can lead to high returns and/or high losses.
Stock market correlations can also help to move the markets. But cannot be used as 100% accurate. Other indicators such as Technical Analysis, Fundamental Analysis, and insider trading Have been used to determine which way the markets will move.
Stocks fall under
Industry Groups
. Stocks tend to follow the direction of their specific Stock Sector. It is said that 50% of the stocks movement is based on the movement of its particular industry group.
Ever heard NASDAQ, SPY and Dow Jones on the news? These are Index Trading Stocks.
Indexes
allow you to track groups of stocks. To learn more about the basics of investing visit this beginner investing website.
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