Noun

Singular stock market

Plural stock markets

stock market (plural stock markets)

1. A market for the trading of company stock.

Related terms

• stock broker
• stock exchange
• stock market bubble
• stock market crash

A stock market is a public market (a loose network of economic transactions not a physical facility or discrete entity) for the trading of company stock and derivatives at an agreed price; these are securities listed on a stock exchange as well as those only traded privately.

The size of the world stock market was estimated at about $36.6 trillion US at the beginning of October 2008. The total world derivatives market has been estimated at about $791 trillion face or nominal value, 11 times the size of the entire world economy. The value of the derivatives market, because it is stated in terms of notional values, cannot be directly compared to a stock or a fixed income security, which traditionally refers to an actual value. Moreover, the vast majority of derivatives 'cancel' each other out (i.e., a derivative 'bet' on an event occurring is offset by a comparable derivative 'bet' on the event not occurring.). Many such relatively illiquid securities are valued as marked to model, rather than an actual market price.

The stocks are listed and traded on stock exchanges which are entities of a corporation or mutual organization specialized in the business of bringing buyers and sellers of the organizations to a listing of stocks and securities together. The stock market in the United States is NYSE while in Canada, it is the Toronto Stock Exchange. Major European examples of stock exchanges include the London Stock Exchange, Paris Bourse, and the Deutsche Börse. Asian examples include the Tokyo Stock Exchange, the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, and the Bombay Stock Exchange. In Latin America, there are such exchanges as the BM&F Bovespa and the BMV.

A stock market is a market for the trading of company stock, and derivatives of same; both of these are securities listed on a stock exchange as well as those only traded privately.

Sourced

• Markets can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent.
  • John Maynard Keynes
• Trends are highways to develop further ideas on them, whereas hypes are dead-end roads. Only the first player will profit.
  • Michael Hänni, Co-founder of trendguide.com

• Bane [Baldwin Bane, New York chief of the SEC] was being bedeviled by a promoter who wanted his approval to register stock in a gold mine. Every day, Bane, who smelled a rat, found a reason to turn away the promoter, always demanding more information. One day Bane, opening his mail, mistakenly read a telegram for the promoter from his partner out west. It read, "CANCEL REGISTRATION. HAVE FOUND GOLD."
  • Martin Mayer in his book Wall Street - Men and Money, 1955.
  • See U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

Trends in stock markets

• The trend is your friend!
  • Dr. George Lane

• In a bull market the trend of prices, of course, is decidedly and definitely upward. Therefore whenever a stock goes against the general trend you are justified in assuming that there is something wrong with that particular stock.
  • Jesse Lauriston Livermore

From Wikiquote under the GNU Free Documentation License.
Fri Jul 10 06:54:06 2009