The stock market is a place where stocks and bonds are bought and sold. The term stock refers to the profit and assets (capital) that a business or corporation raises through shares. A share is one of the equal parts into which the capital a business or corporation raises is divided; designating the shareholder to the portion of the profits raised. An exchange is a market where stocks are bought and sold. Some examples of stock exchanges are the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) stock market and the NASDAQ stock market. The NYSE and the NASDAQ stock markets both provide buyers and sellers the opportunity to trade shares of stock in businesses and corporations that are registered for public trading. The most active stocks in the NASDAQ stock market includes business such as Apple Inc., Microsoft Corporation, and Cisco Systems, Inc. The most active stocks in the NYSE stock market includes Bank of America Corporation, Ford Motor Company, and AT&T Inc. …show more content…
Some of the most common stock market performance indicators include the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA), Standard & Poor’s 500 (S&P 500), Wilshire 5000, Russell 2000, and the NASDAQ Composite Index. The DJIA is commonly referred to as a price weighted index, and represents about a quarter of the value of the whole United States stock market. A change in the DJIA represents changes that investors use to determine the earnings and risks of the large, active