Wednesday, October 3, 2007

The Stock Market System

As a corporation is formed, its initial shareholders are able to acquire shares of stock from the point of subscription when a company is created. The stock market system is an opportunity for the trading of shares of stock of listed corporations.

When a company starts to be traded to the public, the primary market comes in where those who subscribe to the initial public offering (IPO) takes on the shares of stock sold from point of IPO. When investors who bought into a company at IPO point of view decides to sell their shares of stock to other people, they can do so by going to the stock market.

The stock market is a secondary market for securities trading wherein original or secondary holders of a company’s shares of stock can sell their stocks to other individuals within the frame work of the stock market system.

The stock market has buyers of stocks or those who want to own a part of the company but weren’t able to do so during the initial public offerings made by the company to the public when it has decided to list itself as a publicly listed company.

The secondary market or the stock market allows other individuals to sell shares of the company when the initial shareholders may have realized that they want to sell their shares after gaining either significant profit or realized significant loss from point of acquiring a company from its IPO price.

As the stock market has developed and progressed over the years, the way stock shares are transferred from one individual to another has become more complex and more challenging to be regulated. Technology has aided in providing more efficient ways of transactions. Front and back end solutions are put into place that helps direct the exchange of shares of stock in timely and secure manner.

Public education over how the stock market works is one of the primary concerns of the investing public in order to promote the trading activities of the stock market to other individuals who may also benefit from doing transactions over this secondary type of equities market.

With the large quantity of relevant company information on performance of publicly listed companies, this information will help the investors to become more aware of the directions of the companies where they have share of stocks on and this will also aid them in directing their investment strategies.