The Different Kinds of Finance Stock Markets and How They Interact With One Another
In this sense you have the New York Stock Exchange and the other stock exchange organizations around the world.
The stock classifications included in a finance market will be as varied as the types of corporations that apply to be listed with them.
Thus you have, under one marketing umbrella, stocks representing part ownership in companies that cater to every type of commodity and/or service you can think of.
Given the thousands of corporations showcased in financial markets, it will be difficult for a first-timer to get a listing of participating companies based on some criteria.
Running parallel with and facilitating the operation of financial markets, index lists or "indexes" for short provide a way for people to easily look for companies they are interested in.
An index may be global in which case the companies listed in it will be huge corporations from all over the world.
A good example of a global index is the S&P global 100 index which includes such corporations as Toyota, McDonalds, Kimberley-Clarke and Nissan.
To view the corporations selling under this list, you simply have to "Google" the phrase.
On the other hand, you have the national indexes which list down corporations within a specific country.
It is interesting to note that the convenience that indexes provide for classifying stock investments has led to another form of financial market.
Index funds have arisen around certain indexes.
An index fund is similar to a mutual fund.
The thrust of this organization is to function as an investor cum stock broker for people interested in putting their money on indexed stocks.
Contributions are accepted from buyers and the funds are pooled together to buy selected stocks from index lists.
The annual profit is evenly distributed among the contributors pro rata.
The nature of index fund investments is unlike traditional stock trading.
Money is invested in stocks which are known to yield a regular income.
There is not much speculation done and this type of investment may be broadly considered as an income stock investment.
As such they are called passively managed stocks as opposed to the actively managed stock trading.
The profits are proportionate to the money invested and will often be limited to 10% of the buyer's participation in the fund.
Lately, it has been observed that the returns from index funds are becoming more popular because of the relatively small amount of risk involved.
Playing the financial market has averaged a return of 1.
8% less than index funds that put their money on certain popular indexes.
As you can very well see, investing in the financial markets need not be a difficult thing for you to pull through and make a visible profit from your investment which may not be enough to buy luxuries but will certain go a long way towards augmenting your funds when needed.
Besides you always have the option of re-selling your stocks.