A stock market is a place to either buy or sell shares of stock. This occurs at a physical location or it can be done via a computer. Stock represents an equity position in a traded company.The New York Stock Exchange is one example of where stock tips or stock derivatives can be publicly traded.
The first stock market can be tracked to ancient Rome. The Roman government offered up for bid contracts for projects. Those assuming the contracts were the “publicani.” These were groups that made available to investors shares in their organizations. In 1606, the Dutch East India Company was the first organization to issue stock after the Middle Ages. Many consider it to be the first multinational corporation.
The biggest stock exchange in the world is the New York Stock Exchange. The market value of all the companies listed on the exchange comes in at over $25,000,000,000,000. It began in New York on Wall Street in New York City in 1792. It has significantly grown to where it is not unusual to see more than 2,000,000,000 shares traded daily, with a value of over $41,000,000,000.
A stock market can be a place to make or lose an enormous amount of money. During bull markets, those holding significant numbers of shares in a company whose stock is in demand can realize handsome profits. Conversely, those with considerable stock ownership during bear markets can be subject to profound loss.
October 24th, 1929 has been recorded in the history books as Black Thursday. It was then that the NYSE saw the start of a precipitous fall in the value of stocks. Panic selling kicked in five days later on Black Tuesday. On that day the value of shares dropped in excess of $14 billion. Some mark this financial catastrophe as the advent of the Great Depression.
Investors have long spent time trying to determine the next bull or bear market. What is new is that the Internet has had a profound impact on trading stock. Nowadays, investors can make a beeline straight to the exchange floor and buy or sell stocks at the touch of a few keys.
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