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To: Don Pueblo who wrote (581)	6/6/2001 8:32:48 AM
From: Don Pueblo	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1016

WHAT IS A STOCK? (c) 2000 TLC may not be reproduced without permission Simply stated, the word stock is used to describe a share of stock, which is a piece of a company. A share of stock is one specific kind of security. A security is a piece of paper that has some monetary value. There are many kinds of securities. A dollar bill is a security. A mortgage loan is secured by a note, which is a security. A share of stock is a security. A share of stock is a piece of paper that entities the owner to a piece (a “share”) of that company. A share of stock can be thought of like any commodity. It will fluctuate in value depending on many outside circumstances. Most companies have shares of stock, but only some of these companies are public companies. Public companies have shares of stock that can be traded back and forth among individual people. This trading, like much other trading, is done in a market. At this writing, one of the largest public companies in the world is General Electric Company, “GE”. GE is a public company, and shares of stock in GE are traded back and forth every day. The shares of GE are traded on an exchange called The New York Stock Exchange. You can buy a share of GE stock (a publicly traded company) through The New York Stock Exchange. How do you buy a share of stock? The market is highly regulated. You must use a broker to facilitate the transaction. The broker is called a stockbroker, and he works for a brokerage firm. Besides shares of stock, the stockbroker can facilitate transactions in other kinds of securities, such as corporate bonds. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) polices all securities transactions, and federal law must be followed, which is one reason that you have to use a brokerage firm to buy or sell a share of stock. The overall term that is used for all of this buying and selling activity is the stock market. If we were talking about buying and selling apples, it would be called “the apple market”. There are many places on the Internet where you can find out more about the stock market. The more you learn, the better off you will be.