Intro. to the Stock Market

• What exactly is a stock and why do companies sell stock in the first place?
  - A stock represent a partial ownership of a corporation. Means that when you buy a stock, the company gives you a certificate that indicates that you posses a small fraction in that company. Companies sell stock in the first place because they wanna make more money by let in other people work for them.
  
• What is the difference between a public and a private company?
  - The difference between a public and a private company is that a public company is one whose stock is traded by the public. For example: listed on an exchange such as the New York Stock Exchange or NASDAQ. A private company is one whose stock is generally held by one shareholder or a small group of shareholders.
  
• What is the Dow Jones Industrial Average?
  - The Dow Jones Industrial Average is one of several stock market indices created by nineteenth century Wall Street Journal editor and Dow Jones & Company co-founder Charles Dow.
  
• What is a blue chip stock?
  - A Blue Chip stock is a well established company having a stable earnings and non extensive liabilities. Most blue chip stocks pay regular dividends, even when business is faring worse than usual. They are valued by investors seeking relatives and stability, though prices per share are usually high.
  
• What is the New York Stock Exchange and the NASDAQ?
  - The New York Stock Exchange is the largest stock exchange in the world by dollar volume and with 2,764 listed securities. It also has the second most securities of all stock exchange.
  - The NASDAQ (National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations) is an American stock exchange. It is the largest electronic screen-based equity securities trading market in the United States. With approximately 3,200 companies, it lists more companies and on average trades more shares per day than any other U.S. market.
  
• What is a mutual fund?
  - A mutual fund is a professional managed form a collective investments that pools money from many investors and invests it in stock, bonds, short-term money market instruments, or other securities. In a mutual fund, the fund manager, who is also known as the portfolio manager, trades the fund's underlying securities, realizing capital gains or losses, and collects the dividend or interest income. The investment proceeds are then passed along to the individual investors. The value of a share of the mutual fund, known as the net assest value per share (NAV), is calculated daily based on the total value of the fund divided by the number of shares currently issued and outstanding.
  
• What are some of the biggest companies on the stock market, how much is their stock?
  - Some of the biggest companies on the stock market and their stock are:
  Microsoft Corporation - $276.42B
  AT&T - $226.71B
  Bank of America - $190.25B
  Toyota - $169.20B
  Apple - $117.9B
  
• What is the PE ratio of a stock?
  
• What is a stock dividend?