The Stock Market What Is It?

Introduction Why do people start businesses?

Profit When you make money in business, it is called a profit. Mathematically: Profit = Revenue – Cost For example: If you buy an iPod for $250 and sell it for $300, you made a profit of …

Loss There is also a risk that you will lose money!

How do you raise money to start a new business? One way to raise money is to borrow money from a bank. This money must be paid back.

Stocks You can also sell ownership in the company. This means you have other people give you money and they have a share in the profits (and losses) of the company. These ownership shares are called shares of stocks.

Dividends When a company makes a profit, they typically pay the owners of stock a dividend.

The Stock Market If you own shares of a company, you can sell them to other people in the stock market. The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) is one of these markets.

Stock Prices When a company is doing well, more people want to buy the stock and its price in the market rises. When a company is not doing well, more people want to sell the stock and its price falls.

Recap Businesspeople raise money buy selling stock (ownership claims) in their company. People who buy these shares can sell them on the market at a higher price and make money. Stock Market in Plain English

The Pepsi/Coke Challenge This week, each day you will look up and graph the stock prices for two companies: Pepsi and Coke.