Many investors have a rudimentary understanding of how stocks are traded, but they do not fully understand how things trade. There are many horror stories. An investor sees their stock slipping, knows it will slip further, so puts in an overnight trade only to learn later that stocks continue to fall after the local market closes. Or, an investor believes they are fixed in at a certain number at the moment they call their broker, and learn later that they bought stocks at a much higher cost than expected.
How a system that manages billions of shares trading in a single day, that never ends as the sun skims through the time zones, is a mystery to most. We are constantly working to decipher the patterns and predictions here at www.StockMarketOpens.com. Read on for some more information:
Trade Equals Buy or Sell
In the jargon of the financial markets, a trade happens when an investor buys or sells. The request to buy goes to the ‘floor’ where the stocks are purchased. The purchaser owns nothing more than pieces of paper. They do not own a part of the company. They cannot put an ad in the paper to sell their stocks. In most cases, their stocks cannot be used as collateral against a loan, or mortgage. But, somehow, these pieces of paper represent an intangible asset that can increase in money – even if the company is not doing well.
Yes, a stock’s value is dependent on a company’s financial health, but the stock itself can be sold independently of the company’s balance sheet. For example, technically, you can walk out and pay 10x the value of a stock for it, without ever reading the company’s balance sheets.
Exchange Floor Trades
Trading on the ‘floors’ is done at the markets. … [Read More]