The stock market. Most students today have heard of the stock market, but do not know what it is.

The stock market is also known as a stock exchange. The stock market or stock exchange is a term that we use to talk about a place where stocks and bonds are bought and sold. For most people, you will purchase a certain amount of stock in a company of choice with a goal of selling said stock after holding for however long it takes the stock to increase in value and then selling it for profit. “When you buy stock, you become a shareholder, which means you now own a “part” of the company. If the company’s profits go up, you “share” in those profits. If the company’s profits fall, so does the price of your stock. If you sold your stock on a day when the price of that stock falls below the price you paid for it, you would lose money.” (http://www.themint.org)

The stock market rises and falls while the profits of companies fluctuate. Over the course of history, the stock exchange has seen both the extremes, low and high. “Black Thursday” brought the roaring twenties to stop and threw the entire country into an economic depression. On October 29, 1929, Wall Street investors traded about 16 million shares on the New York Stock Exchange in a single day. Billions of dollars were lost in the blink of an eye, wiping out hundreds of thousands of investors.

Companies that are private can choose to go public and enter the stock exchange allowing the public to become shareholders. Snapchat, the famous social media app frequently used all over the world, recently went public. In Snapchat’s first couple days, the price of one share was very highly priced but dropped 16% due to some investors questioning on how much the company will actually make and also seeing that the projected worth of the company was overestimated.

Investing in the stock market has been said to be a type of gambling in many cases. When one invests in the stock market, they purchase x amount of shares of a specific company without knowing if the price of those shares will rise or fall or gain or lose money. Just like in Roulette, when you bet on a number or color without knowing if the ball will land on that number or color and loose or gain you profit. But if you are an experienced investor you will know the way the market has been behaving and can predict certain things such as in the value of shares increasing or decreasing and therefore can buy and sell stock based on previous stock history and future assumptions on how the company will perform.

The stock market is a great way to invest your money if you know what you’re doing. If you are unsure of how to buy, sell, invest, or the stock market as a whole, ask someone who has more experience than yourself to help teach and guide you into becoming an investor.