STOCK SPLIT

A stock split or stock divide increases the number of shares in a public company. The price is adjusted such that the before and after market capitalization of the company remains the same and dilution does not occur. Options and warrants are included.

Take, for example, a company with 100 shares of stock priced at $50 per share. The market capitalization is 100 × $50, or $5000. The company splits its stock 2-for-1. There are now 200 shares of stock and each shareholder holds twice as many shares. The price of each share is adjusted to $25. The market capitalization is 200 × $25 = $5000, the same as before the split.

Ratios of 2-for-1, 3-for-1, and 3-for-2 splits are the most common, but any ratio is possible. Splits of 4-for-3, 5-for-2, and 5-for-4 are used, though less frequently. Investors will sometimes receive cash payments in lieu of fractional shares.

It is often claimed that stock splits, in and of themselves, lead to higher stock prices; research, however, does not bear this out. What is true is that stock splits are usually initiated after a large run up in share price. Momentum investing would suggest that such a trend would continue regardless of the stock split. In any case, stock splits do increase the liquidity of a stock; there are more buyers and sellers for 10 shares at $10 than 1 share at $100.

Other effects could be psychological. If many investors believe that a stock split will result in an increased share price and purchase the stock the share price will tend to increase. Others contend that the management of a company, by initiating a stock split, is implicitly signaling its confidence in the future prospects of the company.

In a market where there is a high minimum number of shares, or a penalty for trading in so-called odd lots (a non multiple of some arbitrary number of shares), a reduced share price may attract more attention from small investors. Small investors such as these, however, will have negligible impact on the overall price.

Reverse stock split

A reverse stock split, or reverse split, is just the same, but in reverse: a reduction in number of shares and an accompanying increase in the share price. The ratio is also reversed: 1-for-2, 1-for-3 and so on.

There is a stigma attached to doing this so it is not initiated without very good reason. Many institutional investors and mutual funds, for example, have rules against purchasing a stock whose price is below some minimum, perhaps $5. An extreme case would be when a share price has dropped so low that it is in danger of being delisted from its stock exchange.

It is also possible that a reverse stock split could be used as a tactic to reduce the number of shareholders. In a hypothetical 1-for-100 reverse split any investor holding less than 100 shares would simply receive a cash payment and no shares of stock. If the resulting number of shareholders has then dropped below some threshold, it may be placed into a different regulatory category.

Typically, the stock will temporarily add a "D" to the end of its ticker during a reverse stock split.

Effect on historical charts

When a stock splits it is shown on many charts similar to a dividend payout. But when a stock splits it does not show the dramatic dip in price. Taking the same example as above, a company with 100 shares of stock priced at $50 per share. The company splits its stock 2-for-1. There are now 200 shares of stock and each shareholder holds twice as many shares. The price of each share is adjusted to $25. Based on this example you would expect that you would see the stock dropping 1 day from $50 to $25. This would cause chaos in the market as investors would panic if they did not take time to realize that there was a stock split. So what is done is something called adjusted close price. This adjusted close price will take all the closing prices before the split and divide them by the split ratio. So when you look at the charts it will seem as if the price was always $25. Both the Yahoo! historical price charts and the Google historical price charts show the adjusted close prices.

SOURCE : WIKIPEDIA

VOTING SHARE

A voting share (also called common stock or ordinary share) is a stock giving a stockholder the right to vote on matters of corporate policy and the composition of the members of the board of directors.

Voting shares are in contrast to preferred shares, which may have different voting, dividend, or other rights.

SOURCE : WIKIPEDIA

REGISTERED SHARE

A Registered share is a stock that is registered on the name of the exact owner. If the owner of such a share sells his share, the new owner must register with name and address.

Registered shares offer issuers the advantage, enabling them to always know exactly who their shareholders are. Unexpected surprises with active investors could be prohibited with that stock-vehicle.

SOURCE: WIKIPEDIA

TREASURY STOCK

A treasury stock or reacquired stock is stock which is bought back by the issuing company, reducing the amount of outstanding stock on the open market ("open market" including insiders' holdings).

Stock repurchases are often used as a tax-efficient method to put cash into shareholders' hands, rather than pay dividends. Sometimes, companies do this when they feel that their stock is undervalued on the open market. Other times, companies do this to provide a "bonus" to incentive compensation plans for employees. Rather than receive cash, recipients receive an asset that might appreciate in value faster than cash saved in a bank account. Another motive for stock repurchase is to protect the company against a takeover threat.

The United Kingdom equivalent of treasury stock as used in the United States is treasury share. Treasury stocks in the UK refers to government bonds or gilts.

Limitations of treasury stock

• Treasury stock does not pay a dividend
• Treasury stock has no voting rights
• Total treasury stock can not exceed the maximum proportion of total capitalization specified by law in the relevant country

Buying back shares

Benefits

If efficient market theory is correct, a company buying back its stock should have no effect at all on its stock price. If the market fairly prices a company's shares at $50/share, if a company buys back 100 shares for $5000, it now has $5000 less cash but there are 100 fewer shares outstanding; the net effect should be that the value per share is unchanged. However, buying back shares does improve certain per-share ratios, such as price/earnings (earnings per share is increased due to fewer shares outstanding), but that is only because valuing a company's shares according to those ratios is not accurate when a company is holding a lot of cash. If a company's shares are underpriced, then a company can benefit its other shareholders by buying back shares. If a company's shares are overpriced, then a company is actually hurting its remaining shareholders by buying back stock.

Incentives

One other reason for a company to buy back its own stock is to reward holders of stock options. Option holders are hurt by dividend payments, since, typically, they are not eligible to receive them. A share buyback program may increase the value of remaining shares (if the buyback is executed when shares are underpriced); if so, option holders benefit. A dividend payment short term always decreases the value of shares after the payment, so, on the day shares go ex-dividend, option holders always lose. Finally, if the sellers into a corporate buyback are actually the option holders themselves, they may directly benefit from temporarily unrealistically favorable pricing.

After buyback

The company can either retire the shares (however, retired shares are not listed as treasury stock on the company's financial statements) or hold the shares for later resale. Buying back stocks reduces the number of outstanding shares. To see this, note that accompanying the decrease in the number of shares outstanding is a reduction in company assets, in particular, cash assets, which are used to buy back shares.

Accounting for treasury stock

On the balance sheet, treasury stock is listed under shareholder equity as a negative number.

One way of accounting for treasury stock is with the cost method. In this method, the paid-in capital account is reduced in the balance sheet when the treasury stock is bought. When the treasury stock is sold back on the open market, the paid-in capital is either debited or credited if it is sold for more or less than the initial cost respectively.

Another common way for accounting for treasury stock is the par value method. In the par value method, when the stock is purchased back from the market, the books will reflect the action as a retirement of the shares. Therefore, common stock is debited and treasury stock is credited. However, when the treasury stock is resold back to the market the entry in the books will be the same as the cost method.

In either method, any transaction involving treasury stock cannot increase the amount of retained earnings. If the treasury stock is sold for more than cost, then the paid-in capital treasury stock is the account that is increased not retained earnings. In auditing financial statements, it is a common practice to check for this error to detect possible attempts to "cook the books".

SOURCE : WIKIPEDIA

APO (ALTERNATIVE PUBLIC OFFERING)

An Alternative Public Offering (APO) is the combination of a reverse merger with a simultaneous Private Investment of Public Equity (PIPE). It allows companies an alternative to the IPO as a means of going public while raising capital.

Overview

There are two parts that comprise an APO; the reverse merger and the PIPE. In the reverse merger, the private company becomes public by merging with or being acquired by a public “shell” company. The shell company is a public company that has no assets or liabilities. When the private company and public shell merge together, the combined entity thereafter trades under the previously private company’s name rather than the shell company’s name as it did before.

What differentiates an APO from a reverse merger is the simultaneous PIPE raise. A PIPE is when a publicly traded company sells its stock to investors in a privately negotiated transaction. The stock is normally sold at a discount to current market value and investors are normally acquiring unregistered “restricted” stock. The typical PIPE investor is institutional investors such as hedge funds or mutual funds. PIPEs are usually completed by investment banks who act as “Placement Agent” in the transaction.

It is believed that the first APO to be completed was China BAK Battery on January 20, 2005 by Halter Financial Group.

Process

An APO is a quick transaction when compared to an Initial Public Offering (IPO). At the closing of an APO, the public shell and private company sign merger documents to complete the reverse merger; file a Super 8K with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), which is the required public disclosure of transaction; file a registration statement with the SEC to register the PIPE shares; release PIPE funds from escrow; and issue a press release announcing the completion of the transaction. The company’s stock now begins trading on the OTCBB, reflecting the new valuation. A company can close an APO in as little as 30 – 45 days. After the close of an APO, the company is funded and has the exact same SEC disclosure requirements as an IPO. Approximately 3 to 4 months after the completion of the APO, the company’s registration statement should clear comments and “go effective” with the SEC. When this is accomplished the company can then submit its application to obtain a listing on NASDAQ, AMEX, or NYSE. Listing approval for the exchanges typically takes about one month. At this point analyst research coverage begins and the company focuses on IR efforts, non-deal roadshow, conferences etc.

At the conclusion of a successful APO transaction, a company has received equity funding and has a base of institutional investors. The company has the sponsorship of an investment bank and is exchange listed with analyst coverage. There is now a true market value for the company and the company is positioned to raise additional capital in PIPE transactions.

Benefits

Companies want to become public through an APO for several reasons. The public shell company already has shareholders, so after the APO is complete, the formerly private company typically already meets the shareholder requirements for NASDAQ and AMEX; 400 and 300 respectively. A company that goes public through an IPO must sell its stock to a large number of shareholders in order to meet these requirements necessitating a broad marketing and roadshow process. Unlike with an IPO, there is no public disclosure required until the transaction closes. Customers, suppliers, employees, and press are unaware until closing. Therefore, a private company can pursue going public through an APO and understand what kind of investor response and valuation they will receive without having to make the “leap of faith” requirement of an IPO. With an IPO a company must publicly announce its intentions and file with the SEC at the beginning of the process. It is only after clearing comments with the SEC and after going on the roadshow that a company learns what kind of investor response and valuation it will receive.

The APO model owes much of its success to the involvement of the Investment Bank as the gatekeeper that standalone reverse mergers never had. In a traditional reverse merger, anyone could simply buy a shell and go public whether or not they had sufficient financial performance to justify being a public company. With an APO, the investment bank would not raise capital for a company that it did not believe would be successful in the marketplace. This is why the APO has such a high success rate. The investment bank also brings research, trading and liquidity to the company’s stock after the transaction closes. Investment banks find the APO process appealing because they can receive the same fees and beakage for raising the capital as they do in an IPO in a much condensed period of time and to a significantly smaller number of investors.

PIPE investors are attracted to the APO because they get to buy stock at a negotiated discount to the projected public market value of a company. In addition, because the company completed a reverse merger and is now public, there is a guaranteed exit defined upfront if they wish to get out. After a company completes an APO, potential investors will be inclined to invest in additional PIPE raises for the company because the public company has had SEC disclosures from day one including audited financial statements, Sarbanes-Oxley, 10Qs, 8Ks, etc. Many tier 1 hedge funds are active investors in APO and many investment banks support the process. There are many tier 2 and tier 3 banks that are active in APO business.

Disadvantages

Investors expect a discount on stock since they are selling restricted securities and thus this is a more expensive cost of capital to the company. The aftermarket of an APO typically takes 6 – 12 months to develop and thus there is minimal stock liquidity immediately at closing.

SOURCE : WIKIPEDIA

IPO, THE NEXT ONE

Reasons for listing

When a company lists its shares on a public exchange, it will almost invariably look to issue additional new shares in order to raise extra capital at the same time. The money paid by investors for the newly-issued shares goes directly to the company (in contrast to a later trade of shares on the exchange, where the money passes between investors). An IPO, therefore, allows a company to tap a wide pool of stock market investors to provide it with large volumes of capital for future growth. The company is never required to repay the capital, but instead the new shareholders have a right to future profits distributed by the company.

The existing shareholders will see their shareholdings diluted as a proportion of the company's shares. However, they hope that the capital investment will make their shareholdings more valuable in absolute terms.

In addition, once a company is listed, it will be able to issue further shares via a rights issue, thereby again providing itself with capital for expansion without incurring any debt. This regular ability to raise large amounts of capital from the general market, rather than having to seek and negotiate with individual investors, is a key incentive for many companies seeking to list

Procedure

IPOs generally involve one or more investment banks as "underwriters." The company offering its shares, called the "issuer," enters a contract with a lead underwriter to sell its shares to the public. The underwriter then approaches investors with offers to sell these shares.

The sale (that is, the allocation and pricing) of shares in an IPO may take several forms. Common methods include:

• Dutch auction
• Firm commitment
• Best efforts
• Bought deal
• Self Distribution of Stock

A large IPO is usually underwritten by a "syndicate" of investment banks led by one or more major investment banks (lead underwriter). Upon selling the shares, the underwriters keep a commission based on a percentage of the value of the shares sold. Usually, the lead underwriters, i.e. the underwriters selling the largest proportions of the IPO, take the highest commissions—up to 8% in some cases.

Multinational IPOs may have as many as three syndicates to deal with differing legal requirements in both the issuer's domestic market and other regions. For example, an issuer based in the E.U. may be represented by the main selling syndicate in its domestic market, Europe, in addition to separate syndicates or selling groups for US/Canada and for Asia. Usually, the lead underwriter in the main selling group is also the lead bank in the other selling groups.

Because of the wide array of legal requirements, IPOs typically involve one or more law firms with major practices in securities law, such as the Magic Circle firms of London and the white shoe firms of New York City.

Usually, the offering will include the issuance of new shares, intended to raise new capital, as well the secondary sale of existing shares. However, certain regulatory restrictions and restrictions imposed by the lead underwriter are often placed on the sale of existing shares.

Public offerings are primarily sold to institutional investors, but some shares are also allocated to the underwriters' retail investors. A broker selling shares of a public offering to his clients is paid through a sales credit instead of a commission. The client pays no commission to purchase the shares of a public offering, the purchase price simply includes the built-in sales credit.

The issuer usually allows the underwriters an option to increase the size of the offering by up to 15% under certain circumstance known as the greenshoe or overallotment option.

SOURCE : WIKIPEDIA

DEVIDEND

A taxable payment declared by a company's board of directors and given to its shareholders out of the company's current or retained earnings, usually quarterly. Dividends are usually given as cash (cash dividend), but they can also take the form of stock (stock dividend) or other property. Dividends provide an incentive to own stock in stable companies even if they are not experiencing much growth. Companies are not required to pay dividends. The companies that offer dividends are most often companies that have progressed beyond the growth phase, and no longer benefit sufficiently by reinvesting their profits, so they usually choose to pay them out to their shareholders. also called payout.

SOURCE : investorwords.com

STOCK PRICES CHANGE

Stock prices change every day as a result of market forces. By this we mean that share prices change because of supply and demand. If more people want to buy a stock (demand) than sell it (supply), then the price moves up. Conversely, if more people wanted to sell a stock than buy it, there would be greater supply than demand, and the price would fall.

Understanding supply and demand is easy. What is difficult to comprehend is what makes people like a particular stock and dislike another stock. This comes down to figuring out what news is positive for a company and what news is negative. There are many answers to this problem and just about any investor you ask has their own ideas and strategies.

That being said, the principal theory is that the price movement of a stock indicates what investors feel a company is worth. Don't equate a company's value with the stock price. The value of a company is its market capitalization, which is the stock price multiplied by the number of shares outstanding. For example, a company that trades at $100 per share and has 1 million shares outstanding has a lesser value than a company that trades at $50 that has 5 million shares outstanding ($100 x 1 million = $100 million while $50 x 5 million = $250 million). To further complicate things, the price of a stock doesn't only reflect a company's current value, it also reflects the growth that investors expect in the future.

The most important factor that affects the value of a company is its earnings. Earnings are the profit a company makes, and in the long run no company can survive without them. It makes sense when you think about it. If a company never makes money, it isn't going to stay in business. Public companies are required to report their earnings four times a year (once each quarter). Wall Street watches with rabid attention at these times, which are referred to as earnings seasons. The reason behind this is that analysts base their future value of a company on their earnings projection. If a company's results surprise (are better than expected), the price jumps up. If a company's results disappoint (are worse than expected), then the price will fall.

Of course, it's not just earnings that can change the sentiment towards a stock (which, in turn, changes its price). It would be a rather simple world if this were the case! During the dotcom bubble, for example, dozens of internet companies rose to have market capitalizations in the billions of dollars without ever making even the smallest profit. As we all know, these valuations did not hold, and most internet companies saw their values shrink to a fraction of their highs. Still, the fact that prices did move that much demonstrates that there are factors other than current earnings that influence stocks. Investors have developed literally hundreds of these variables, ratios and indicators. Some you may have already heard of, such as the price/earnings ratio, while others are extremely complicated and obscure with names like Chaikin oscillator or moving average convergence divergence.

SOURCE: www.investopedia.com

IPO

initial public offering (IPO), also referred to simply as a "public offering," is the first sale of stock by a private company to the public. IPOs are often issued by smaller, younger companies seeking capital to expand, but can also be done by large privately-owned companies looking to become publicly traded.

In an IPO, the issuer may obtain the assistance of an underwriting firm, which helps it determine what type of security to issue (common or preferred), best offering price and time to bring it to market.

IPOs can be a risky investment. For the individual investor, it is tough to predict what the stock will do on its initial day of trading and in the near future since there is often little historical data with which to analyze the company. Also, most IPOs are of companies going through a transitory growth period, and they are therefore subject to additional uncertainty regarding their future value.

SOURCE : WIKIPEDIA

SHAREHOLDER

Individual, group, or organization that holds one or more shares in a firm, and in whose name the share certificate is issued. It is legal for a firm to have only one shareholder. Also called stockholder.

SOURCE : /www.businessdictionary.com/

COMMON STOCK

COMMON STOCK

Securities representing equity ownership in a corporation, providing voting rights, and entitling the holder to a share of the company's success through dividends and/or capital appreciation. In the event of liquidation, common stockholders have rights to a company's assets only after bondholders, other debt holders, and preferred stockholders have been satisfied. Typically, common stockholders receive one vote per share to elect the company's board of directors (although the number of votes is not always directly proportional to the number of shares owned). The board of directors is the group of individuals that represents the owners of the corporation and oversees major decisions for the company. Common shareholders also receive voting rights regarding other company matters such as stock splits and company objectives. In addition to voting rights, common shareholders sometimes enjoy what are called "preemptive rights". Preemptive rights allow common shareholders to maintain their proportional ownership in the company in the event that the company issues another offering of stock. This means that common shareholders with preemptive rights have the right but not the obligation to purchase as many new shares of the stock as it would take to maintain their proportional ownership in the company. also called junior equity.

SOURCE : www.investorwords.com

Common Stock Common stock is, well, common. When people talk about stocks they are usually referring to this type. In fact, the majority of stock is issued is in this form. We basically went over features of common stock in the last section. Common shares represent ownership in a company and a claim (dividends) on a portion of profits. Investors get one vote per share to elect the board members, who oversee the major decisions made by management. Over the long term, common stock, by means of capital growth, yields higher returns than almost every other investment. This higher return comes at a cost since common stocks entail the most risk. If a company goes bankrupt and liquidates, the common shareholders will not receive money until the creditors, bondholders and preferred shareholders are paid.

SOURCE :www.investopedia.com

PENNY STOCK

PENNY STOCK

Definition

In the U.S. financial markets, the term penny stock commonly refers to any stock trading outside one of the major exchanges (NYSE, NASDAQ, or AMEX), and is often considered pejorative. However, the official SEC definition^[1] of a penny stock is a low-priced, speculative security of a very small company, regardless of market capitalization or whether it trades on a securitized exchange (like NYSE or NASDAQ) or an "over the counter" listing service, such as the OTCBB or Pink Sheets. The terms penny stock, microcap stock, small caps, and nano caps are sometimes all used interchangeably, however per the SEC definition, penny stock status is determined by share price, not market capitalization or listing service.

In the UK markets, a penny stock, or penny shares, as they are more commonly called, generally refer to a stock and shares in small cap companies, defined as being companies with a market capitalization of less than £100 million and/or a share price of less than £1 with a bid/offer spread greater than 10%. In the UK Penny Shares are covered by a standard regulatory risk warning issued by the Financial Services Authority(FSA)

In France, a penny stock generally refers to a risky stock with a price of less than 1 euro.
Penny stocks generally have market caps under $500M, trade under $5.00 per share and are considered speculative, particularly those that trade on low volumes over the counter.

High-Risk Investments

Many new investors are lured to the appeal of a penny stock due to the low price and potential for rapid growth which may be as high as several hundred percent in a few days. Similarly, severe loss can occur and many penny stocks lose all of their value in the long term. Accordingly, the SEC warns that penny stocks are high risk investments and new investors should be aware of the risks involved. These risks include limited liquidity, lack of financial reporting, and fraud.

Since a penny stock has fewer shareholders, it is less 'liquid', meaning it will not trade as many shares per day as a larger company. Any sudden change in demand or supply of stock can lead to a lot of volatility in the stock price. This lack of liquidity can send a stock price soaring up quickly or crashing down quickly. Lack of liquidity and volatility also makes penny stocks much more vulnerable to manipulation by management, market makers, or third parties. A lack of liquidity can also make it extremely difficult to sell a stock, particularly if there are no buyers that day. This can also make the stock extremely difficult to short.

Secondly, unlike NASDAQ or the NYSE, there are only minimal listing requirements for a stock to remain on the OTCBB, namely that they make their filings with the SEC on time.^[6] In fact, companies that fail to meet minimum standards on one of the broader exchanges and are delisted often relist on the OTCBB or the Pink Sheets.

Furthermore, a stock trading on the Pink Sheets (recognizable with a .PK suffix) has little to no regulatory or listing requirements whatsoever, at least compared to major markets. There are no minimum accounting standards, change in notification of ownership of shares, and reported other material changes affecting the financial viability of a company, all of which are designed to protect shareholders.

The SEC notes most of the same about Internet message boards, where fraudsters claiming to be unbiased investors who've carefully done their due diligence may in fact be company insiders, and that a single person or a small team can create the appearance of a huge interest in a stock simply by creating a huge number of aliases, while banning the most vocal or perceptive critics of these offerings.

Penny Stock Fraud

The reason for all this relentless promotion of penny stocks is because of the profits to be made through illegal pump and dump schemes. The SEC explains how it works:

"A company's web site may feature a glowing press release about its financial health or some new product or innovation. Newsletters that purport to offer unbiased recommendations may suddenly tout the company as the latest "hot" stock. Messages in chat rooms and bulletin board postings may urge you to buy the stock quickly or to sell before the price goes down. Or you may even hear the company mentioned by a radio or TV analyst. Unwitting investors then purchase the stock in droves, creating high demand and pumping up the price. But when the fraudsters behind the scheme sell their shares at the peak and stop hyping the stock, the price plummets, and investors lose their money. Fraudsters frequently use this ploy with small, thinly traded companies because it's easier to manipulate a stock when there's little or no information available about the company."

There are all sorts of variations of the classic pump and dump, from short-and-distort to selling chop stocks — the last being a scam in which shares are acquired for pennies under Regulation S and then illegally sold to overseas or domestic retail investors. Other features of the typical penny stock scam include spam e-mails and junk faxes that tout ludicrous and fraudulent claims, crooked newsletter writers who promote a stock for a fee, message boards swarming with "buy now!!!" postings about a stock from anonymous, paid posters, fake or misleading press releases issued by the company, or boiler rooms full of cold-callers targeting naive, elderly, or foreign buyers all in attempt to drive up the share price while the insiders sell.

A more recent outbreak of penny stock fraud is far more brazen, and is based mostly overseas. Organized crime gangs in Eastern Europe and Asia will acquire a large number of shares of a moribund penny stock. Then, using passwords and logins to electronic brokerages, such as E*Trade, stolen at public computer terminals in hotels and elsewhere, they will then use the hijacked customer accounts to buy up shares, while at the same time selling their own shares, draining the customer accounts and leaving their victims holding thousands of shares of worthless penny stocks.

While not all stocks listed on the Pink Sheets or the OTCBB are fraudulent, one Business Week article estimated that chop stocks alone "make up perhaps half the 85 million-share daily volume of the OTC Bulletin Board."

Internet spam

Many Internet users have been exposed to e-mail spam promoting penny stocks. Approximately fifty-five billion unsolicited e-mail messages are sent each day, a significant proportion of which tout penny stocks, usually as part of a pump and dump scheme^{[citation needed]}. According to a study conducted at Oxford,^[19] 15% of all spam was related to penny stock fraud. According to the study, "People who respond to the "pump and dump" scam can lose 8% of their investment in two days. Conversely, the spammers who buy low-priced stock before sending the e-mails, typically see a return of between 4.9% and 6% when they sell."

SOURCE : WIKIPEDIA

MIROCAP STOCK

MIROCAP STOCK

The term microcap stock (also micro-cap) is used to describe publicly traded companies which have a market capitalization of roughly US$250 million or less. The vast majority of U.S. stocks fall into this category, but they make up only a small fraction of the total stock market value. Most are traded on over the counter exchanges, and their prices are quoted on the OTC Bulletin Board (OTCBB) or the Pink Sheets. Larger, more established microcaps are often listed on the NASDAQ Small Cap or American Stock Exchange (AMEX). Other common exchanges for U.S. microcaps include the Alternative Investment Market (AIM) in London, the Toronto Venture Exchange, and the Frankfurt and Berlin stock exchanges. The AIM has become a popular alternative to listing on U.S. exchanges since the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 greatly increased the accounting and legal costs of a U.S. stock listing, which are disproportionately high for small companies.

Microcap stocks are notorious for their volatility, and a high percentage of these companies fail to execute their business plans and go out of business. Fraud and market manipulation are not uncommon, and the transactions costs in trading can be quite high. However, many investors believe that these risks are outweighed by the large percentage returns that come with success. Pricing is more likely to be inefficient, since fewer institutional investors and analysts operate in this space, due to the relatively small dollar amounts involved and the lack of liquidity.

The microcap and smallcap sectors have outperformed larger stocks in the years since 2000, and new indexes have been created to track the performance of microcaps as an asset class. These include the Russell Microcap Index, the Dow Jones Select Micro-cap Indexes, and the Dow Jones Wilshire U.S. Micro-Cap Index.

Source : wikipedia

PREFFERED STOCK

Preferred stock

Preferred stock, also called preferred shares or preference shares, is typically a higher ranking stock than voting shares, and its terms are negotiated between the corporation and the investor.
Preferred stock usually carry no voting rights but may carry superior voting rights to common stock. Preferred stock may carry a dividend that is paid out prior to any dividends to common stock holders. Preferred stock may have a convertibility feature into common stock. Preferred stockholders will be paid out in assets before common stockholders and after debt holders in bankruptcy. Terms of the preferred stock are stated in a "Certificate of Designation".

Rights

Unlike common stock, preferred stock usually has several rights attached to it:
The core right is that of preference in the payment of dividends and upon liquidation of the company. Before a dividend can be declared on the common shares, any dividend obligation to the preferred shares must be satisfied.
The dividend rights are often cumulative, such that if the dividend is not paid it accumulates from year to year.
Preferred stock may or may not have a fixed liquidation value, or par value, associated with it. This represents the amount of capital that was contributed to the corporation when the shares were first issued.
Preferred stock has a claim on liquidation proceeds of a stock corporation, equivalent to its par or liquidation value unless otherwise negotiated. This claim is senior to that of common stock, which has only a residual claim.
Almost all preferred shares have a negotiated fixed dividend amount. The dividend is usually specified as a percentage of the par value or as a fixed amount. For example Pacific Gas & Electric 6% Series A preferred.
Some preferred shares have special voting rights to approve certain extraordinary events (such as the issuance of new shares or the approval of the acquisition of the company) or to elect directors, but most preferred shares provide no voting rights associated with them. Some preferred shares only gain voting rights when the preferred dividends are in arrears for a substantial time.
Usually preferred shares contain protective provisions which prevent the issuance of new preferred shares with a senior claim. Individual series of preferred shares may have a senior, pari-passu or junior relationship with other series issued by the same corporation.
Occasionally companies use preferred shares as means of preventing hostile takeovers, creating preferred shares with a poison pill or forced exchange/conversion features that exercise upon a change in control.
The above list, although including several customary rights, is far from comprehensive. Preferred shares, like other legal arrangements, may specify nearly any right conceivable. Preferred shares in the U.S. normally carry a call provision, enabling the issuing corporation to repurchase the share at its (usually limited) discretion.
Some corporations contain provisions in their charters authorizing the issuance of preferred stock whose terms and conditions may be determined by the board of directors when issued. These "blank check" preferred shares are often used as takeover defense (see also poison pill). These shares may be assigned very high liquidation value that must be redeemed in the event of a change of control or may have enormous supervoting powers.

Users

Preferred shares are more common in private or pre-public companies, where it is more useful to distinguish between the control of and the economic interest in the company. Government regulations and the rules of stock exchanges may discourage or encourage the issuance of publicly traded preferred shares. In many countries banks are encouraged to issue preferred stock as a source of Tier 1 capital. On the other hand, the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange prohibits listed companies from having more than one class of capital stock.
A single company may issue several classes of preferred stock. For example, a company may undergo several rounds of financing, with each round receiving separate rights and having a separate class of preferred stock; such a company might have "Series A Preferred", "Series B Preferred", "Series C Preferred" and common stock.
In the United States there are two types of preferred stocks: straight preferreds and convertible preferreds. Straight preferreds are issued in perpetuity (although some are subject to call by the issuer under certain conditions) and pay the stipulated rate of interest to the holder. Convertible preferreds--in addition to the foregoing features of a straight preferred--contain a provision by which the holder may convert the preferred into the common stock of the company (or, sometimes, into the common stock of an affiliated company) under certain conditions, among which may be the specification of a future date when conversion may begin, a certain number of common shares per preferred share, or a certain price per share for the common.
There are income tax advantages generally available to corporations that invest in preferred stocks in the United States that are not available to individuals.
Some argue that a straight preferred stock, being a hybrid between a bond and a stock, bears the disadvantages of each of those types of securities without enjoying the advantages of either. Like a bond, a straight preferred does not participate in any future earnings and dividend growth of the company and any resulting growth of the price of the common. But the bond has greater security than the preferred and has a maturity date at which the principal is to be repaid. Like the common, the preferred has less security protection than the bond. But the potential of increases of market price of the common and its dividends paid from future growth of the company is lacking for the preferred.
Suppose that an investor paid par ($100) today for a typical straight preferred. Such an investment would give a current yield of just over 6%. Now suppose that in a few years 10-year Treasuries were to yield 13+% to maturity, as they did in 1981; these preferreds would yield at least 13%, which would knock their market price down to $46, for a 54% loss. (In all probability, they would yield some 2% more than the Treasuries--or something like 15%, which would take the market price down to $40, for a 60% loss.)
The important difference between straight preferreds and Treasuries (or any investment-grade Federal agency or corporate bond) is that the bonds would move up to par as their maturity date is approached, whereas the straight preferred, having no maturity date, might remain at these $40 levels (or lower) for a very long time.
Advantages of straight preferreds posited by some advisers include higher yields and tax advantages (currently yield some 2% more than 10-year Treasuries, rank ahead of common stock in the case of bankruptcy, dividends are taxable at a maximum 15% rather than at ordinary income rates, as in the case of bond interest).

SOURCE : WIKIPEDIA

Stock Market Index

Stock Market Index

A comparison of three major stock indices: the NASDAQ Composite, Dow Jones Industrial Average, and S&P 500. All three have the same height at March 2007. Notice the large dot-com spike on the NASDAQ, a result of the large number of tech companies on that index.
A stock market index is a listing of stock and a statistic reflecting the composite value of its components. It is used as a tool to represent the characteristics of its component stocks, all of which bear some commonality such as trading on the same stock market exchange, belonging to the same industry, or having similar market capitalizations. Many indices compiled by news or financial services firms are used to benchmark the performance of portfolios such as mutual funds.

Types of indices
Stock market indexes may be classed in many ways. A broad-base index represents the performance of a whole stock market — and by proxy, reflects investor sentiment on the state of the economy. The most regularly quoted market indexes are broad-base indexes comprised of the stocks of large companies listed on a nation's largest stock exchanges, such as the American Dow Jones Industrial Average and S&P 500 Index, the British FTSE 100, the French CAC 40, the German DAX, the Japanese Nikkei 225, the Indian Sensex and the Hong Kong Hang Seng Index.
The concept may be extended well beyond an exchange. The Dow Jones Wilshire 5000 Total Stock Market Index, as its name implies, represents the stocks of nearly every publicly traded company in the United States, including all U.S. stocks traded on the New York Stock Exchange (but not ADRs) and most traded on the NASDAQ and American Stock Exchange. Russell Investment Group added to the family of indexes by launching the Russell Global Index.
More specialised indices exist tracking the performance of specific sectors of the market. The Morgan Stanley Biotech Index, for example, consists of 36 American firms in the biotechnology industry. Other indexes may track companies of a certain size, a certain type of management, or even more specialized criteria — one index published by Linux Weekly News tracks stocks of companies that sell products and services based on the Linux operating environment.

Weighting
An index may also be classified according to the method used to determine its price. In a Price-weighted index such as the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the NYSE ARCA Tech 100 Index, the price of each component stock is the only consideration when determining the value of the index. Thus, price movement of even a single security will heavily influence the value of the index even though the dollar shift is less significant in a relatively highly valued issue, and moreover ignoring the relative size of the company as a whole. In contrast, a market-value weighted or capitalization-weighted index such as the Hang Seng Index factors in the size of the company. Thus, a relatively small shift in the price of a large company will heavily influence the value of the index. In a market-share weighted index, price is weighted relative to the number of shares, rather than their total value.
Traditionally, capitalization- or share-weighted indices all had a full weighting i.e. all outstanding shares were included. Recently, many of them have changed to a float-adjusted weighting which helps indexing.

Critique of Capitalisation-Weighting
The use of capitalisation-weighted indexes is often justified by the central conclusion of modern portfolio theory that the optimal investment strategy for any investor is to hold the market portfolio, the capitalisation-weighted portfolio of all assets. However, empirical tests conclude that market indexes are not efficient. This can be explained by the fact that these indexes do not include all assets or by the fact that the theory does not hold. The practical conclusion is that using capitalisation-weighted portfolios is not necessarily the optimal method.
As a consequence, capitalisation weighting has been subject to severe criticism (see e.g. Haugen and Baker 1991, Amenc, Goltz, and Le Sourd 2006, or Hsu 2006), pointing out that the mechanics of capitalisation weighting lead to trend-following strategies that provide an inefficient risk-return trade-off.
Also, while capitalisation weighting is the standard in equity index construction, different weighting schemes exist. First, while most indexes use capitalisation weighting, additional criteria are often taken into account, such as sales/revenue and net income (see the “Guide to the Dow Jones Global Titan 50 Index”, January 2006). Second, as an answer to the critiques of capitalisation-weighting, equity indexes with different weighting schemes have emerged, such as "wealth"-weighted (Morris, 1996), “fundamental”-weighted (Arnott, Hsu and Moore 2005), “diversity”-weighted (Fernholz, Garvy, and Hannon 1998) or equal-weighted indexes.

Indexes and passive investment management
There has been an accelerating trend in recent decades to create passively managed mutual funds that are based on market indices, known as index funds. Advocates claim that index funds routinely beat a large majority of actively managed mutual funds; one study claimed that over time, the average actively managed fund has returned 1.8% less than the S&P 500 index - a result nearly equal to the average expense ratio of mutual funds (fund expenses are a drag on the funds' return by exactly that ratio). Since index funds attempt to replicate the holdings of an index, they obviate the need for — and thus many costs of — the research entailed in active management, and have a lower "churn" rate (the turnover of securities which lose fund managers' favor and are sold, with the attendant cost of commissions and capital gains taxes).
Indices are also a common basis for a related type of investment, the exchange-traded fund or ETF. Unlike an index fund, which is priced daily, an ETF is priced continuously, is optionable, and can be sold short.

Ethical stock market indices
A notable specialised index type is those for ethical investing indexes that include only those companies satisfying ecological or social criteria, e.g. those of The Calvert Group, KLD, FTSE4Good Index, Dow Jones Sustainability Index and Wilderhill Clean Energy Index.
Another important trend is strict mechanical criteria for inclusion and exclusion to prevent market manipulation, e.g. in Canada when Nortel was permitted to rise to over 50% of the TSE 300 index value. Ethical indices have a particular interest in mechanical criteria, seeking to avoid accusations of ideological bias in selection, and have pioneered techniques for inclusion and exclusion of stocks based on complex criteria. Another means of mechanical selection is mark-to-future methods that exploit scenarios produced by multiple analysts weighted according to probability, to determine which stocks have become too risky to hold in the index of concern.
Critics of such initiatives argue that many firms satisfy mechanical "ethical criteria", e.g. regarding board composition or hiring practices, but fail to perform ethically with respect to shareholders, e.g. Enron. Indeed, the seeming "seal of approval" of an ethical index may put investors more at ease, enabling scams. One response to these criticisms is that trust in the corporate management, index criteria, fund or index manager, and securities regulator, can never be replaced by mechanical means, so "market transparency" and "disclosure" are the only long-term-effective paths to fair markets.

Environmental stock market indices
An environmental stock market index aims to provide a quantitative measure of the environmental damage caused by the companies in an index. Indices of this nature face much the same criticism as Ethical indices do — that the 'score' given is partially subjective.
However, whereas 'ethical' issues (for example, does a company use a sweatshop) are largely subjective and difficult to score, an environmental impact is often quantifiable through scientific methods. So it is broadly possible to assign a 'score' to (say) the damage caused by a tonne of mercury dumped into a local river. It is harder to develop a scoring method that can compare different types of pollutant — for example does one hundred tonnes of carbon dioxide emitted to the air cause more or less damage (via climate change) than one tonne of mercury dumped in a river (and poisoning all the fish).
Generally, most environmental economists attempting to create an environmental index would attempt to quantify damage in monetary terms. So one tonne of carbon dioxide might cause $100 worth of damage, whereas one tonne of mercury might cause $50,000 (as it is highly toxic). Companies can therefore be given an 'environmental impact' score, based on the cost they impose on the environment. Quantification of damage in this nature is extremely difficult, as pollutants tend to be market externalities and so have no easily measurable cost by definition.

SOURCE: WIKIPEDIA

STOCK STORY

Stock Story

Types of stock
Stock typically takes the form of shares of common stock (or voting shares). As a unit of ownership, common stock typically carries voting rights that can be exercised in corporate decisions. Preferred stock differs from common stock in that it typically does not carry voting rights but is legally entitled to receive a certain level of dividend payments before any dividends can be issued to other shareholders. Convertible preferred stock is preferred stock that includes an option for the holder to convert the preferred shares into a fixed number of common shares, usually anytime after a predetermined date. Shares of such stock are called "convertible preferred shares" (or "convertible preference shares" in the United Kingdom).
Although there is a great deal of commonality between the stocks of different companies, each new equity issue can have legal clauses attached to it that make it dynamically different from the more general cases. Some shares of common stock may be issued without the typical voting rights being included, for instance, or some shares may have special rights unique to them and issued only to certain parties. Note that not all equity shares are the same.

Stock derivatives
A stock derivative is any financial instrument which has a value that is dependent on the price of the underlying stock. Futures and options are the main types of derivatives on stocks. The underlying security may be a stock index or an individual firm's stock, e.g. single-stock futures.
Stock futures are contracts where the buyer is long, i.e., takes on the obligation to buy on the contract maturity date, and the seller is short, i.e., takes on the obligation to sell. Stock index futures are generally not delivered in the usual manner, but by cash settlement.
A stock option is a class of option. Specifically, a call option is the right (not obligation) to buy stock in the future at a fixed price and a put option is the right (not obligation) to sell stock in the future at a fixed price. Thus, the value of a stock option changes in reaction to the underlying stock of which it is a derivative. The most popular method of valuing stock options is the Black Scholes model. Apart from call options granted to employees, most stock options are transferable

Shareholder
A shareholder (or stockholder) is an individual or company (including a corporation) that legally owns one or more shares of stock in a joint stock company. Companies listed at the stock market are expected to strive to enhance shareholder value.
Shareholders are granted special privileges depending on the class of stock, including the right to vote (usually one vote per share owned) on matters such as elections to the board of directors, the right to share in distributions of the company's income, the right to purchase new shares issued by the company, and the right to a company's assets during a liquidation of the company. However, shareholder's rights to a company's assets are subordinate to the rights of the company's creditors.
Shareholders are considered by some to be a partial subset of stakeholders, which may include anyone who has a direct or indirect equity interest in the business entity or someone with even a non-pecuniary interest in a non-profit organization. Thus it might be common to call volunteer contributors to an association stakeholders, even though they are not shareholders.
Although directors and officers of a company are bound by fiduciary duties to act in the best interest of the shareholders, the shareholders themselves normally do not have such duties towards each other.
However, in a few unusual cases, some courts have been willing to imply such a duty between shareholders. For example, in California, USA, majority shareholders of closely held corporations have a duty to not destroy the value of the shares held by minority shareholders.
The largest shareholders (in terms of percentages of companies owned) are often mutual funds, and especially passively managed exchange-traded funds.

Stock price fluctuations
The price of a stock fluctuates fundamentally due to the theory of supply and demand. Like all commodities in the market, the price of a stock is directly proportional to the demand. However, there are many factors on the basis of which the demand for a particular stock may increase or decrease. These factors are studied using methods of fundamental analysis and technical analysis to predict the changes in the stock price. A recent study shows that customer satisfaction, as measured by the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI), is significantly correlated to the stock market value. Stock price is also changed based on the forecast for the company and whether their profits are expected to increase or decrease.

STOCK EXCHANGE
A stock exchange, share market or bourse is a corporation or mutual organization which provides facilities for stock brokers and traders, to trade company stocks and other securities. Stock exchanges also provide facilities for the issue and redemption of securities as well as other financial instruments and capital events including the payment of income and dividends. The securities traded on a stock exchange include: shares issued by companies, unit trusts and other pooled investment products and bonds. To be able to trade a security on a certain stock exchange, it has to be listed there. Usually there is a central location at least for recordkeeping, but trade is less and less linked to such a physical place, as modern markets are electronic networks, which gives them advantages of speed and cost of transactions. Trade on an exchange is by members only. The initial offering of stocks and bonds to investors is by definition done in the primary market and subsequent trading is done in the secondary market. A stock exchange is often the most important component of a stock market. Supply and demand in stock markets is driven by various factors which, as in all free markets, affect the price of stocks (see stock valuation).
There is usually no compulsion to issue stock via the stock exchange itself, nor must stock be subsequently traded on the exchange. Such trading is said to be off exchange or over-the-counter. This is the usual way that bonds are traded. Increasingly, stock exchanges are part of a global market for securities.

SOURCE: WIKIPEDIA

JAKARTA STOCK EXCHANGE

Jakarta Stock Exchange


Bursa Efek Indonesia (BEI) or Indonesia Stock Exchange (IDX) is a stock exchange based in Jakarta, Indonesia.

History
Originally opened in 1912 under the Dutch colonial government, it was re-opened in 1977 after several closures during World War I and World War II. After being reopened in 1977, the exchange was under the management of the newly created Capital Market Supervisory Agency (Badan Pengawas Pasar Modal, or Bapepam), which answered to the Ministry of Finance. Trading activity and market capitalization grew alongside the development of Indonesia's financial markets and private sector - highlighted by a major bull run in 1990. On July 13, 1992, the exchange was privatized under the ownership of Jakarta Exchange Inc. As a result, the functions of Bapepam changed to become the Capital Market Supervisory Agency. On March 22, 1995 JSX launched the Jakarta Automated Trading System (JATS). In September 2007, Jakarta Stock Exchange and Surabaya Stock Exchange merged and named Indonesian Stock Exchange by Indonesian Minister of Finance.

Stock Indices
Two of the primary stock market indices used to measure and report value changes in representative stock groupings are the JSX Composite and the Jakarta Islamic Index (JII). The JII was established in 2002 to act as a benchmark in measuring market activities based on Sharia (Islamic law). Currently, there are approximately 30 corporate stocks listed on the JII. The FTSE/ASEAN Indices were launched by the five ASEAN exchanges (Singapore Exchange, Bursa Malaysia, The Stock Exchange of Thailand, Jakarta Stock Exchange, The Philippine Stock Exchange) and global index provider FTSE on September 21, 2005. The indices, covering the five ASEAN markets, are designed using international standards, free float adjusted, and based on the Industry Classification Benchmark (ICB). The indices comprise FTSE/ASEAN Benchmark Index and FTSE/ASEAN 40 tradable index. The FTSE/ASEAN 40 index is calculated on a real-time basis from 9:00 a.m. and the closing index is calculated at 6:00 p.m. (Singapore time). The FTSE/ASEAN benchmark index is calculated on end-of-day basis.

Merger
Both Jakarta Stock Exchange (JSX) and the Surabaya Stock Exchange (SSX) merged to form a new entity "Indonesia Stock Exchange ( Bursa Efek Indonesia). After the merger, the new entity will have seven directors.

SOURCE : WIKIPEDIA

STOCK MARKET

STOCK MARKET

The Definition
The expression 'stock market' refers to the market that enables the trading of company stocks (collective shares), other securities, and derivatives. Bonds are still traditionally traded in an informal, over-the-counter market known as the bond market. Commodities are traded in commodities markets, and derivatives are traded in a variety of markets (but, like bonds, mostly 'over-the-counter').
The size of the worldwide 'bond market' is estimated at $45 trillion. The size of the 'stock market' is estimated at about $51 trillion. The world derivatives market has been estimated at about $480 trillion 'face' or nominal value, 30 times the size of the U.S. economy…and 12 times the size of the entire world economy. It must be noted though that 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. (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 (a corporation or mutual organization) specialized in the business of bringing buyers and sellers of stocks and securities together. The stock market in the United States includes the trading of all securities listed on the NYSE, the NASDAQ, the Amex, as well as on the many regional exchanges, e.g. OTCBB and Pink Sheets. European examples of stock exchanges include the Paris Bourse (now part of Euronext), the London Stock Exchange and the Deutsche Borse.

Trading
Participants in the stock market range from small individual stock investors to large hedge fund traders, who can be based anywhere. Their orders usually end up with a professional at a stock exchange, who executes the order.
Some exchanges are physical locations where transactions are carried out on a trading floor, by a method known as open outcry. This type of auction is used in stock exchanges and commodity exchanges where traders may enter "verbal" bids and offers simultaneously. The other type of exchange is a virtual kind, composed of a network of computers where trades are made electronically via traders.
Actual trades are based on an auction market paradigm where a potential buyer bids a specific price for a stock and a potential seller asks a specific price for the stock. (Buying or selling at market means you will accept any ask price or bid price for the stock, respectively.) When the bid and ask prices match, a sale takes place on a first come first served basis if there are multiple bidders or askers at a given price.
The purpose of a stock exchange is to facilitate the exchange of securities between buyers and sellers, thus providing a marketplace (virtual or real). The exchanges provide real-time trading information on the listed securities, facilitating price discovery.
The New York Stock Exchange is a physical exchange, also referred to as a listed exchange — only stocks listed with the exchange may be traded. Orders enter by way of exchange members and flow down to a specialist, who goes to the floor trading post to trade stock. The specialist's job is to match buy and sell orders using open outcry. If a spread exists, no trade immediately takes place--in this case the specialist should use his/her own resources (money or stock) to close the difference after his/her judged time. Once a trade has been made the details are reported on the "tape" and sent back to the brokerage firm, which then notifies the investor who placed the order. Although there is a significant amount of human contact in this process, computers play an important role, especially for so-called "program trading".
The NASDAQ is a virtual listed exchange, where all of the trading is done over a computer network. The process is similar to the New York Stock Exchange. However, buyers and sellers are electronically matched. One or more NASDAQ market makers will always provide a bid and ask price at which they will always purchase or sell 'their' stock.
The Paris Bourse, now part of Euronext, is an order-driven, electronic stock exchange. It was automated in the late 1980s. Prior to the 1980s, it consisted of an open outcry exchange. Stockbrokers met on the trading floor or the Palais Brongniart. In 1986, the CATS trading system was introduced, and the order matching process was fully automated.
From time to time, active trading (especially in large blocks of securities) have moved away from the 'active' exchanges. Securities firms, led by UBS AG, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Credit Suisse Group, already steer 12 percent of U.S. security trades away from the exchanges to their internal systems. That share probably will increase to 18 percent by 2010 as more investment banks bypass the NYSE and NASDAQ and pair buyers and sellers of securities themselves, according to data compiled by Boston-based Aite Group LLC, a brokerage-industry consultant [citation needed].
Now that computers have eliminated the need for trading floors like the Big Board's, the balance of power in equity markets is shifting. By bringing more orders in-house, where clients can move big blocks of stock anonymously, brokers pay the exchanges less in fees and capture a bigger share of the $11 billion a year that institutional investors pay in trading commissions.


Importance of stock market
Function and purpose
The stock market is one of the most important sources for companies to raise money. This allows businesses to go public, or raise additional capital for expansion. The liquidity that an exchange provides affords investors the ability to quickly and easily sell securities. This is an attractive feature of investing in stocks, compared to other less liquid investments such as real estate.
History has shown that the price of shares and other assets is an important part of the dynamics of economic activity, and can influence or be an indicator of social mood. Rising share prices, for instance, tend to be associated with increased business investment and vice versa. Share prices also affect the wealth of households and their consumption. Therefore, central banks tend to keep an eye on the control and behavior of the stock market and, in general, on the smooth operation of financial system functions. Financial stability is the raison d'être of central banks.
Exchanges also act as the clearinghouse for each transaction, meaning that they collect and deliver the shares, and guarantee payment to the seller of a security. This eliminates the risk to an individual buyer or seller that the counterparty could default on the transaction.
The smooth functioning of all these activities facilitates economic growth in that lower costs and enterprise risks promote the production of goods and services as well as employment. In this way the financial system contributes to increased prosperity.


Relation of the stock market to the modern financial system
The financial system in most western countries has undergone a remarkable transformation. One feature of this development is disintermediation. A portion of the funds involved in saving and financing flows directly to the financial markets instead of being routed via banks' traditional lending and deposit operations. The general public's heightened interest in investing in the stock market, either directly or through mutual funds, has been an important component of this process. Statistics show that in recent decades shares have made up an increasingly large proportion of households' financial assets in many countries. In the 1970s, in Sweden, deposit accounts and other very liquid assets with little risk made up almost 60 per cent of households' financial wealth, compared to less than 20 per cent in the 2000s. The major part of this adjustment in financial portfolios has gone directly to shares but a good deal now takes the form of various kinds of institutional investment for groups of individuals, e.g., pension funds, mutual funds, hedge funds, insurance investment of premiums, etc. The trend towards forms of saving with a higher risk has been accentuated by new rules for most funds and insurance, permitting a higher proportion of shares to bonds. Similar tendencies are to be found in other industrialized countries. In all developed economic systems, such as the European Union, the United States, Japan and other developed nations, the trend has been the same: saving has moved away from traditional (government insured) bank deposits to more risky securities of one sort or another.


The stock market, individual investors, and financial risk
Riskier long-term saving requires that an individual possess the ability to manage the associated increased risks. Stock prices fluctuate widely, in marked contrast to the stability of (government insured) bank deposits or bonds. This is something that could affect not only the individual investor or household, but also the economy on a large scale. The following deals with some of the risks of the financial sector in general and the stock market in particular. This is certainly more important now that so many newcomers have entered the stock market, or have acquired other 'risky' investments (such as 'investment' property, i.e., real estate and collectables).
With each passing year, the noise level in the stock market rises. Television commentators, financial writers, analysts, and market strategists are all overtalking each other to get investors' attention. At the same time, individual investors, immersed in chat rooms and message boards, are exchanging questionable and often misleading tips. Yet, despite all this available information, investors find it increasingly difficult to profit. Stock prices skyrocket with little reason, then plummet just as quickly, and people who have turned to investing for their children's education and their own retirement become frightened. Sometimes there appears to be no rhyme or reason to the market, only folly.
This is a quote from the preface to a published biography about the long-term value-oriented stock investor Warren Buffett.[2] Buffett began his career with $100, and $105,000 from seven limited partners consisting of Buffett's family and friends. Over the years he has built himself a multi-billion-dollar fortune. The quote illustrates some of what has been happening in the stock market during the end of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st.

SOURCE: WIKIPEDIA