Us Stock Market - Good Option To Invest Money In Stocks

Us Stock Market - Good Option To Invest Money In Stocks

By: Mark Crisp

Both the NYSE (or New York Stock Exchange) and NASDAQ (or National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations system) are the exchanges that make up the US stock market, which has been known to fluctuate greatly over the years.

The market capitalization of the New York Stock Exchange is in trillions of dollars and is the highest in the world. Over a hundred and fifty years old, the NYSE has also the largest volume of shares traded in the world measured in dollars. However, if volumes are only considered, the New York Stock Exchange comes in second place, after the NASDAQ.

The US Stock market offers a convenient means by which a common stock holder can trade in stocks, by easily buying and selling them. Such trading is done electronically in both exchanges, and also on the trading floor in the case of the NYSE. Direct trading on the floor of the exchange is restricted to members or "seat" owners. The seats are limited in number and are much sought after. You have to pay a price in order to become a seat owner. Currently the price is around $4 million.

Stock exchange has an index in order to know the general trend of the individual stock price movement. This index is comprised of the prices of significant stocks quoted and traded in the respective exchange. In the US, one can find three major indices - the NASDAQ index, the Dow Jones index and the S&P index. These indices are further sub-divided into various sector indices to help in analysing the performance of various sectors.

Stock exchanges use stock symbols for denoting the stocks. These are essentially short forms of the company names. You can easily look up the history, current quotes and trends of any company from the stock exchange websites if you know the symbol.

The history of the stock markets in the US is both interesting and informative. Among the notable events during its long history, the crash of 1929 is perhaps the most significant one. The black Tuesday of 1929 is considered as the worst day in the history of the US stock market. The largest quantum of selling was completed on that single day. The crash of 1929 eroded more than $100 billion in investors' assets. This would be worth several hundred times more in today's dollar values.

Now a days people, who do not have the expertise to manage their own investments, have several avenues available to invest their spare money. Such avenues are invest stocks and mutual fund organizations. Eventhough these companies manage their investments professionally, one should be aware that all of them are not equally good. One should make their own research before investing through any of these avenues.

The us stock market consists of two exchanges, NYSE and NASDAQ. If you have some spare money that you would like to invest stocks form a good option. In order to denote the stocks, stock exchanges use stock symbols, usually abbreviated forms of the company names.

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