How Do Stocks Work For Dummies

If you are new to the world of investing, you may have some unfamiliar terms thrown at you. This doesn’t mean that investing is complicated! To provide you with a brief introduction into how stocks work, I have created this for dummies guide. This will give you the basics of stocks so you can get started today!

Stocks are one of the most popular places where people invest their money. If you are wondering, “how do stocks work”? This beginner’s guide can help.

The 10 most important points about stock investing

If you’re committed to investing in stocks, keep the following points in mind as you make your choices and reap your rewards. After all, stock investing is fun and frightening, sane and crazy-making, complicated and simple — and you may need reminders to stay focused.

You’re not buying a stock; you’re buying a company.
The primary reason you invest in a stock is because the company is making a profit and you want to participate in its long-term success.
If you buy a stock when the company isn’t making a profit, you’re not investing — you’re speculating.
A stock (or stocks in general) should never be 100 percent of your assets.
In some cases (such as a severe bear market, also known as a market with prolonged price declines), stocks aren’t a good investment at all. A bear market, however, may offer buying opportunities for profitable companies.
A stock’s price is dependent on the company, which in turn is dependent on its environment, which includes its customer base, its industry, the general economy, and the political climate.
Your common sense and logic can be just as important in choosing a good stock as the advice of any investment expert.
Always have well-reasoned answers to questions such as “Why are you investing in stocks?” and “Why are you investing in a particular stock?”
If you have no idea about the prospects of a company (and sometimes even if you think you do), use stop-loss orders or trailing stops.
Even if your philosophy is to buy and hold stocks for the long term, continue to monitor your stocks and consider selling them if they’re not appreciating or if general economic conditions have changed.

Financial measures to consider before investing in a stock

You’re thinking of buying stock in a company, but before you invest your hard-earned money in hopes of a profitable return, check out some financial ratios that can help indicate whether the company is on sound financial footing. Here are key measures to consider:

Price-to-earnings ratio (P/E): For large cap stocks, the ratio should be under 20. For all stocks (including growth, small cap, and speculative issues), it shouldn’t exceed 40.
Price-to-sales ratio (PSR): The PSR should be as close to 1 as possible.
Return on equity (ROE): ROE should be going up by at least 10 percent per year.
Earnings growth: Earnings should be at least 10 percent higher than the year before. This rate should be maintained over several years.
Debt-to-asset ratio: Debt should be half of assets or less.

Internet resources for stock investing

With the tools available on the internet, you have no excuse for not researching any and every potential stock investment. The following list of resources links you to some of the best financial websites around. Look at what they have to say about a company or an investment before you take the plunge.

How does the stock market work?

The concept behind how the stock market works is pretty simple. The stock market lets buyers and sellers negotiate prices and make trades.

The stock market works through a network of exchanges — you may have heard of the New York Stock Exchange or the Nasdaq. Companies list shares of their stock on an exchange through a process called an initial public offering, or IPO. Investors purchase those shares, which allows the company to raise money to grow its business. Investors can then buy and sell these stocks among themselves, and the exchange tracks the supply and demand of each listed stock.

That supply and demand help determine the price for each security, or the levels at which stock market participants — investors and traders — are willing to buy or sell.

Buyers offer a “bid,” or the highest amount they’re willing to pay, which is usually lower than the amount sellers “ask” for in exchange. This difference is called the bid-ask spread. For a trade to occur, a buyer needs to increase his price or a seller needs to decrease hers.

This all may sound complicated, but computer algorithms generally do most of price-setting calculations. When buying stock, you’ll see the bid, ask, and bid-ask spread on your broker’s website, but in many cases, the difference will be pennies, and won’t be of much concern for beginner and long-term investors.

Historically, stock trades likely took place in a physical marketplace. These days, the stock market works electronically, through the internet and online stockbrokers. Each trade happens on a stock-by-stock basis, but overall stock prices often move in tandem because of news, political events, economic reports and other factors.

Why a Company Issues Shares

Today’s corporate giant likely had its start as a small private entity launched by a visionary founder a few decades ago. Think of Jack Ma incubating Alibaba Group Holding Limited (BABA) from his apartment in Hangzhou, China, in 1999, or Mark Zuckerberg founding the earliest version of Facebook, Inc. (FB) from his Harvard University dorm room in 2004. Technology giants like these have become among the biggest companies in the world within a couple of decades.⁷

However, growing at such a frenetic pace requires access to a massive amount of capital. In order to make the transition from an idea germinating in an entrepreneur’s brain to an operating company, they need to lease an office or factory, hire employees, buy equipment and raw materials, and put in place a sales and distribution network, among other things. These resources require significant amounts of capital, depending on the scale and scope of the business startup.

What is a Stock Exchange?

Stock exchanges are secondary markets, where existing owners of shares can transact with potential buyers. It is important to understand that the corporations listed on stock markets do not buy and sell their own shares on a regular basis (companies may engage in stock buybacks⁸ or issue new shares,⁹ but these are not day-to-day operations and often occur outside of the framework of an exchange). So when you buy a share of stock on the stock market, you are not buying it from the company, you are buying it from some other existing shareholder. Likewise, when you sell your shares, you do not sell them back to the company—rather you sell them to some other investor.

The first stock markets appeared in Europe in the 16th and 17th centuries, mainly in port cities or trading hubs such as Antwerp, Amsterdam, and London.¹⁰ These early stock exchanges, however, were more akin to bond exchanges as the small number of companies did not issue equity. In fact, most early corporations were considered semi-public organizations since they had to be chartered by their government in order to conduct business.

How Share Prices Are Set

The prices of shares on a stock market can be set in a number of ways, but most the most common way is through an auction process where buyers and sellers place bids and offers to buy or sell. A bid is the price at which somebody wishes to buy, and an offer (or ask) is the price at which somebody wishes to sell. When the bid and ask coincide, a trade is made.

The overall market is made up of millions of investors and traders, who may have differing ideas about the value of a specific stock and thus the price at which they are willing to buy or sell it. The thousands of transactions that occur as these investors and traders convert their intentions to actions by buying and/or selling a stock cause minute-by-minute gyrations in it over the course of a trading day. A stock exchange provides a platform where such trading can be easily conducted by matching buyers and sellers of stocks. For the average person to get access to these exchanges, they would need a stockbroker. This stockbroker acts as the middleman between the buyer and the seller. Getting a stockbroker is most commonly accomplished by creating an account with a well established retail broker.

Conclusion

Stocks are an exciting investment vehicle, but they aren’t easy to understand. Just because you’ve worked with money for years doesn’t mean you know how stocks work. If you want to start investing in stocks, there are some fundamentals you need to understand. This article will show you how stocks work and some basic things to think about before investing.