There are thousands of sites devoted to learning and understanding stocks.  One way to make looking up stock prices easier and more convenient is that company stocks are represented with a symbol.  For example, Nike's stock symbol is NKE and Wal-Mart's is WMT.  The reason for symbols is to make trading more accurate and convenient when one wants to purchase or research a particular company stock.

The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) is not the only stock exchange in this country. Even though the NYSE is the biggest and best know stock exchange, there are many more. There are stock exchanges in Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Boston, Philadelphia, and Cincinnati.  Stocks are only traded at exchanges to ensure the safe and secure trade of stocks.  Fraud often threatens the security and life of an organization and due to the importance of stock trading to the US and world economy, every effort is made to ensure the accuracy of a trade.  Approximately 2,500 of the largest companies are traded on NYSE however over 5,000 companies are traded on an exchange called the National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations (NASDAQ).  NASDAQ is a computer automated trading system unlike the NYSE which uses people to help make the trades.  With NASDAQ, a computer does most of the work for NASDAQ trades. 

Wealthy individuals were the first to catch on to trading stocks. However, what the regular person came to realize was that stocks were a good investment over time and much less expensive than owning land or a second house. Also, what these investors knew was that their money was being put to good use. The company shares they purchased today would help a company grow stronger and one day would be worth more than what they paid. As stated before, a stock share is a small fraction of a company. However when you buy a stock share, you are actually helping to pay for a small percentage or part of everything that the company owns like buildings, chairs, computers, etc.  All together when a company "goes public" and sales shares in their company they can reap billions of cash to reinvest in their company.  Extra money a company gets from a stock sell helps them grow, do research, and/or promote their company.

Like any good business person, you hope to buy at a low price for a stock and then later sell that same stock for a higher price, and thus profit from your investments.  So how are the prices of stocks determined?  The price is determined by what someone will pay for the stock.  For example, if the company makes mistakes and/or bad decisions that get reported or are reflected in their financial report, the stock is likely to fall in price since many people who find this information out will then sell the stock.  As lots of people try to sell, the price continues to drop since there is a large supply to sell but few buyers (low demand) who want the stock.  The price just continues to drop until others take the risk and buy what you do not want.  This is how the price is determined.  Basically stock prices drop when there is a large supply of sellers and a low demand of buyers.  The opposite is true however when there is a huge demand for a stock but few sellers (low supply) who want to sell the stock.  Many people purchased Google at $85.00 years ago and even though it is selling for much higher now, it is seen as a very good stock and there are few who want to sell it. This low supply of sellers and a high demand causes the stock price to rise.  EBay works this way.  Lots of bids cause the price to rise.  Little interest can cause the seller to drop their price.

The selling of stock is done by a stock broker. These are the people who are authorized to send request to the stock market to buy and sell on your (shareholder's) behalf. For their services they are paid a commission. When the stock market as a whole is rising in value then it is referred to as a Bull Market. But when the market as a whole is losing value and prices are falling the market is said to be in a Bear Market. Historically the stock market has show investors a positive return in almost all 10 – 20 years periods. It is has proven for millions of investors to be a wise investment for a long term investment plan.

Two indicators of how the stock market as a whole is doing are called the DOW and the S & P 500.  Both of these indexes or samplings of the market help the average investor to see how the markets are doing short term.  The DOW is a listing of the 30 largest companies in their respective industry.  For example, Coca-Cola is listed on the Dow while Pepsi is not.  Wal-Mart is on the Dow while Target is not.  So when you hear the DOW is down, the entire market may not be doing bad but on average the top 30 company's stock are falling in price.  These 30 companies represent only a little over 1% of the entire market.  So to better gauge how the entire market is doing, there is the S & P 500.  This stands for the Standard and Poor 500 or the top 500 companies listed on the NYSE.  The S & P 500 represents 20% of the NYSE.  This index includes both Coco-Cola and Pepsi.  It would include also both Wal-Mart and Target.   

Finally, the common investor like you and I cannot afford to invest in a second home but instead uses their savings each month to buy stocks or groups of stocks called mutual funds.  From this, companies win and investors win when the stocks grow in value as the company makes new products for consumers and creates new jobs for people like ourselves.  The risky part is that there are no guarantees which stocks will rise and which will fall.  Our hope is that we have picked a stable well ran company.  But in the end no one knows for sure.