Archive for the ‘S’ Category

A stock is basically a share of ownership in a corporation. When you buy 1 share of Microsoft you own a tiny fraction of the company (approximately 1/9,310,000,000) — so I really meant it when I said tiny. In other words, to own 1% of Microsoft, you would have to own about 93 million [...]

Often, we speak of the stock market as if it’s a singular entity that exists somewhere. In fact, there are many physical stock markets, called stock exchanges. Two well-known stock exchanges in the United States are the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) and the National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotation System (NASDAQ).
Other major [...]

When you hear the newscaster report the “Dow Jones Industrial Average plunged 400 points,” he’s referring to what we call a stock market index. There are many stock indices, and the most famous ones in the United States are:

Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) — This index consists of 30 of the largest and most widely [...]