Stocks (also called shares) are a key component of many investors’ plans to reach their financial goals. They’re also often misunderstood. Whether you’re just starting out or have been investing for years, understanding the basic principles behind stocks is an important step in building wealth.
A share of a company’s stock represents a fractional ownership stake in the business. Companies sell stock to raise money for a variety of reasons, including paying off debt and funding growth plans that they can’t – or don’t want – finance with new loans. When a company has strong earnings and future prospects, its stock price usually increases over the long term. Investors in that company can then sell their shares for more than they paid for them, generating a profit.
When a company first issues its shares, it lists them on public exchanges like the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq so that everyday investors can buy and sell them. This is known as an initial public offering, or IPO. The company and its advisors determine how many shares to offer during the IPO, and they set a price for those shares. The company then receives the funds from the sale of those shares, and they use those to run the business. Shares of the company’s stock then trade on the secondary market – aka the stock market – each day.
The value of a stock fluctuates throughout the day based on a number of factors, including supply and demand. Typically, when the price of a stock decreases, it’s because fewer people are willing to pay for the shares. If you own shares of a company and its stock declines in value, you will lose some or all of your investment. This is why it’s essential to diversify, investing in a wide range of different stocks.
In general, stocks have been shown to provide the highest returns of all investment types. That’s because they give investors the opportunity to generate capital gains when the company’s earnings and future prospects improve. However, not all stocks will increase in value, and some even go out of business entirely. This is why it’s vital to invest over the long term and stick with your investments, rather than trying to time the market.
There are a number of ways to categorize stocks, but two of the most common are by market capitalization and by sector. Large-cap stocks represent shares in large, well-established companies with long histories of solid performance and earnings. Small-cap stocks represent shares in smaller, less established companies. There are also specialty categories of shares, such as convertible preferred, which starts out as preferred but can be converted to common stock at the company’s discretion, and treasury stock, which represents stocks that a company repurchases from the market and keeps on its balance sheet. It’s important to understand the different types of shares and how they work when writing about stocks. This will help readers understand the differences in risk and reward between different stocks.