1. How the Stock Market Works

2. Corporations Corporation: a business that sells shares of stock to the public Stock: a certificate of ownership of a company Board of directors—group that makes the decisions for the company; it hires the officers (CEO, managers, etc.); the board is elected by shareholders A corporation is an easy way to get capital - money from investors

3. Shareholders Shareholders—people who own stock in a company and thus are owners receive a % of the profits, called dividends But play no part in daily operations Privately held—a company whose shares of stock are owned by a small number of people and are not for sale to the public Publicly held—a company whose shares of stock are owned by thousands of people who trade their shares on a public stock exchange

4. Stock Exchange Stocks in publicly traded companies are bought and sold at a stock market (also known as a stock exchange). The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) is an example. The NYSE can be thought of as a big room where everyone who wants to buy and sell shares of stocks can go to do business

5. Exchanges NYSE New York Stock Exchange AMEX American Stock Exchange NASDAQ National Association of Securities Dealers

6. Stock Broker Stock broker - goes to the NYSE on your behalf to buy or sell your stock. You pay the broker a commission, generally $10 to $100 per trade, to buy or sell stock for you.

7. Market Indicators Market Indicators are market averages designed to tell you how companies traded on the stock market are doing in general. Dow Jones Industrial Average is the average value of 30 large, industrial stocks of big companies like General Motors, Goodyear, IBM and Exxon S&P 500 is the average value of 500 large companies.

8. Bull vs. Bear Market What market indicators tell you is the general health of stock prices as a whole. If the economy is "doing well," then the prices of stocks as a group tend to rise in what is referred to as a "bull market." If it is "doing poorly," prices as a group tend to fall in what is called a "bear market." Charging Bull— Wall Street's bronze bull, by Arturo De Modica, located at the northern tip of Bowling Green