what is nasdaq and all these other different exchanges? and how does the whole stock market system work?

Alexander N: what is nasdaq and all these other different exchanges? and how does the whole stock market system work?
whats a bond ? share? how the stock market system works? what does it mean when stocks market drops or is at an increase. Whats nasdaq? how many exchanges are there? As much info about the market world and investing will help thnk you

Answers and Views:

Answer by gregory_dittman
Those answers are at: www.investopedia.com

Answer by Lozza 81
A share is a small piece of a company. It’s value is derived based on a number of different factors, including the companies current earnings, expected future earnings, industry, competitors, the dividends it pays etc… as well as the feeling in the overall market.

When the market drops, it means that a large proportion of shares have had a fall in price. When it has increased, the prices have increased.

I’m from Australia, so I’m not sure how many exchanges there are in the States, but I can think of at least 3 major ones (NYSE, AMEX, Nasdaq).

Bonds are not my thing, but they are basically a loan to a company or government, which pays interest. The bond itself derives it’s value from the interest rate at the time (If interest rates go down, your bond will have a higher interest rate to the new bonds on the market, so it’s price will go up).

Answer by Asad I
Hi,

Bond: A bond falls in category of DEBT and it can actively/passively traded in bond market. let us say a firm wanna raise 100K to start a new venture it can issue 100 bonds worth of 1K in market. Each bond bear a “coupon” which is interest payment annually/semiannually, say 10%. Market rate in comparison to coupon rate determines the price of bond.
Market rate>Coupon Discount
Market rate<Coupon Premium
Market rate=Coupon Par value

Par value is the worth of bond mentioned in indenture, will be returned on maturity. Well there is lot to about valuation but this beyond the scope right now. there are several categories of bonds like Treasury, zero coupon, call able, put able etc and several risks involved like Interest rate risk, yield curve risk, inflation risk, default risk, call/put risk and so on..

share: shares represent equity. a person who invests in equity means buy shares will be entitled to receive dividend which is announced by the issuing company at end of year or as per dividend policy. valuation here Beyond or scope. two type of shares are Common And Preferred. Preffered shares hold a fixed dividend and behave a bit like bonds. they are used to raise capital by organizations.
Stock market functions: modern market function as continuous action market. bid and ask are placed for specific securities and when they match transaction is done. A clearing house act as grantee.

Bullish/Bearish: when there r more buyer (Bulls) in the market it goes up. Bears means seller. Its simple demand and supply principal. this is a general scenario there are other factors involved in ups and downs specially Monitory Policy and Confidence level.

NASDAQ:National Association of Security Dealers Automated Quotations. The NASDAQ is a computer operated system owned by the NASD that provides dealers with price quotations for stocks and securities traded through the NASDAQ. The largest US stock market (in terms of listings) with nearly 4,000 companies listed created in 1971 by the NASD (now FINRA) to link traders who deal in over the counter stocks.Because not all companies have the same fiscal year end, Nasdaq in cooperation with I/B/E/S, uses FY1, FY2, etc., to identify unique fiscal periods for forecast data. For comparison purposes, I/B/E/S rounds off the quarter end dates to the nearest month end.

Two main categories of stockexchangess are national and regional.

I think for the time being this may help,
Regards
Asad.