Stock market

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A stock market is a public market 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 includes the trading of all securities listed on the NYSE Euronext, 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 London Stock Exchange, the Deutsche Börse.

For more information about Stock market, read the full article at Wikipedia.
This text uses material from Wikipedia and is available under the GNU Free Documentation License.


News tagged with stock market

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baby

Recent 'momentum' influences choices of baby names, psychology professors find

Medicine & Health / Psychology & Psychiatry

created Oct 13, 2009 | popularity 5 / 5 (1) | comments 2

(PhysOrg.com) -- How do people choose a name for their child? Researchers have long noted that the overall popularity of a name exerts a strong influence on people's preferences -- more popular names, such ...


An outside view of the New York Stock Exchange on Wall Street

Wall Street rocket scientists crash to Earth

Other Sciences / Mathematics

created Apr 07, 2009 | popularity 4.2 / 5 (13) | comments 12

There's a reason Wall Street resembles a rocket experiment gone wrong: rocket scientists helped make it happen.


Biology, training and profit sharing make best traders

Biology, training and profit sharing make best traders

Other Sciences / Mathematics

created Nov 25, 2009 | popularity 4.5 / 5 (2) | comments 1

(PhysOrg.com) -- Cambridge researchers have identified a group of traders consistently able to outperform the market, even during the credit crisis.


Facebook is tracking how happy people are in the United States

Facebook measuring the mood in the US

Technology / Internet

created Oct 06, 2009 | popularity 2 / 5 (1) | comments 3

Facebook is tracking how happy people are in the United States. Mother's Day was predictably upbeat, according to a Gross National Happiness index graph on the popular social networking service's blog on ...


Hoover's pro-labor stance helped cause Great Depression, economist says

Other Sciences / Economics

created Aug 28, 2009 | popularity 3.4 / 5 (11) | comments 12

(PhysOrg.com) -- Pro-labor policies pushed by President Herbert Hoover after the stock market crash of 1929 accounted for close to two-thirds of the drop in the nation's gross domestic product over the two years that followed, ...


A field with solar cells made by German manufacturer Q-Cells

Asian competitors shadow German solar industry

Technology / Energy

created Aug 18, 2009 | popularity 4 / 5 (8) | comments 0

Germany's solar power industry, until recently the world leader in the technology, is facing an unprecedented crisis, analysts say, outshone by cheaper competitors from Asia, most notably Chinese firms.


Japanese electronics giant Sharp Corp. announced an annual net loss of 125.82 billion yen (1.3 billion dollars)

Japan's Sharp reports 1.3 bln dollar annual loss

Technology / Business

created Apr 27, 2009 | popularity not rated yet | comments 0

Japanese electronics giant Sharp Corp. announced an annual net loss of 1.3 billion dollars, its first ever, due to a slump in sales, but it forecast a return to profit this year.


stock market

New research helps predict stock market

Other Sciences / Other

created Feb 20, 2009 | popularity 3.3 / 5 (6) | comments 3

(PhysOrg.com) -- Researchers from Massey University have developed a new way to predict stock markets that has been recognised with an award from New Zealand finance specialists.


Flawed 401(k) laws putting retirement at risk, expert says

Other Sciences / Other

created Oct 27, 2008 | popularity 4.3 / 5 (6) | comments 2

Congress needs to reform flawed 401(k) laws that could push back retirement for millions of Americans whose savings have collapsed along with the stock market, a University of Illinois elder law expert says.


Twitter was amond top searches in 2009

2009: the Year of Twitter

Technology / Internet

created Nov 30, 2009 | popularity 1 / 5 (1) | comments 0

The year has not yet ended but Microsoft says "Twitter" was among the top searches of 2009 on its new search engine Bing and a company which monitors language has crowned it the top word of the year.


What spooks the stock market in October?

Other Sciences / Economics

created Oct 05, 2009 | popularity not rated yet | comments 1

(PhysOrg.com) -- October ushers in the fourth quarter, falling leaves, football and in some, now infamous, years, financial meltdowns. Is the tenth month of the year more prone to stock market crashes than others? Economics ...


Investors who 'gamble' in the stock market have same characteristics as lottery players

Other Sciences / Other

created Feb 26, 2009 | popularity 5 / 5 (2) | comments 1

The socioeconomic characteristics of people who play state lotteries are similar to investors who pick stocks with a lottery quality--high risk with a small potential for high return, and just like the lottery, returns on ...


Q&A: What does Wall Street?s recovery mean to Main Street?

What does Wall Street's recovery mean to Main Street?

Other Sciences / Economics

created Oct 19, 2009 | popularity 2.7 / 5 (3) | comments 0

(PhysOrg.com) -- The Dow Jones Industrial Average, among the world?s most closely watched stock indexes, closed above the 10,000-point mark last week for the first time since October 2008, a milestone that ...


Shanda Games IPO gets tepid reception

Technology / Business

created Sep 25, 2009 | popularity not rated yet | comments 0

(AP) -- Shanda Games Ltd., a Chinese video game company, raised $1 billion Friday in the largest initial public offering of the year.


Herding leads to wrong decisions in the stock market

Other Sciences / Economics

created Sep 21, 2009 | popularity 4 / 5 (4) | comments 0

One reason for extreme fluctuations in the stock market is herding.