Stock market basics
Stock market - scary place. Guys in pinstriped suits earning gazillions. Maths graduates poring over spreadsheets.
Traders bellowing into phones, screaming across the dealing room floor as share prices collapse around their ears.
Images of the stock market vary, but at heart it is not the complicated world it seems from the outside.
Forget the dealing rooms crammed with stock market traders and the flashing terminals.
We'll arm with the basics of the stock market, right from explaining what shares are, why shares go up and down and how the stock market sets about valuing shares.
Trading on the stock market is at its very heart no different to a trip to the supermarket – the only difference is you are buying and selling shares not baked beans.
You will have noticed the stock market isn't just one homogenous lump, so we talk about the FTSE 100 index of Britain's shares and all points through to Aim – the junior stock market for shares in smaller companies.
You may feel you already know all there is to know about the stock market - by all means skip these sections.
If not we would be only too pleased to give you a guided tour of the stock market and how it works.
In this section:
- Stock market basics
- Stock markets and shares
- Stock market ups and downs
- More stock market ups and downs
- Stock market valuations