Stock

For other uses, see Stock (disambiguation).

In financial markets, stock is the partial ownership of a company. Shareholders bear the financial (but not legal) risk of the corporation, and receive dividends, which are a piece of the net income.

A person or organization which holds shares of stocks is called a shareholder. The value of the stock multiplied by the shares outstanding is the market capitalization. This is the most common metric for valuing a publicly traded company.

Stocks can be bought and sold privately or on stock exchanges. Someone who buys and sells stock on the behalf of another individual is called a stockbroker.

In the United Kingdom and Australia, the term share is used the same way as stock is described in the United States.

Related pages

• corporation
• Joint-stock company

Other websites

• The Oldest Share Archived 2010-09-11 at the Wayback Machine in the world, issued by the Dutch East India Company VOC, 1606.
• Stock Market Trivia: History of Stocks
• Who Decides Stock Prices?
• Researching Old Company Stock Certificates