There are a number of different stock markets around the world. And they're generally geographically focused, though with today's multinational countries any one stock market is likely to have companies from many different countries.
Here, in brief, is how it works.
A business--a company--can be either "private" or "public." "Private" means that its owners are limited in number and there's no way for you or anyone else to buy a part of the company. On the other hand, "public" means that any member of the public can buy/own a portion of the company.
Stock markets are where people can buy and sell public (called publicly-traded) companies.
A publicly-traded company might have 10 million shares. All 10 million, together, is 100% ownership in the company. If you bought 1 million shares, you'd own 10% of the company. If you bought 100,000 shares, you'd own 1% of the company. And so on. A stock market (such as the New York Stock Exchange) is a place where people who want to buy shares in a company go to buy those shares. Or, if they want to sell, they sell the shares on the New York Stock Exchange. The buying and selling is done through stock brokers. You call up a stock broker and say: "I want to buy 100 shares of ABC Company." The stock broker does that--called "executing the trade." The broker charges you for the shares plus a small amount as a commission.
You're buying the shares from someone else who owns the shares but wants to sell. It's the broker's job to find someone who wants to sell those shares. (All this is done electronically now in fractions of a second.)
On the New York Stock Exchange, you can find all sorts of different companies. In your example, you could find computer makers and peripheral makers. You'll also find airlines, chemical companies, biotech companies, banks, food processors . . . .really, any type of company. Other stock exchanges will have just as much diversity. There are lots of different reasons why a company might want to be listed (have its shares bought and sold) on one exchange versus another.
Hope that helps.
In simple terms, companies that are public (private companies can only have investors or companies privately reach deals with them, while public companies allows anybody to invest in the company without directly reaching them) trade on a stock exchange (NYSE, NASDAQ, etc.).
On the stock exchange, you buy and sell "stocks" (percentage ownership of the company) with other anonymous people. Simply put, you buy stock at a low price, and you sell it back out at a high price.
It's like a resale business without any actual tangible good (it's solely on paper). The only difference is, there's no cost of manufacturing (there is, however, commissions fees involved), and your stock's value can appreciate and depreciate (go up or down) pseudo-randomly (pseudo, since, if a company is good, it'll probably increase in value over the long-run).
There's also no need for you to have to get a job or open up a company or anything like that. You can start as soon as you reach the age of majority (18), and open up an account to trade at a brokerage or bank.
To answer your question, the stock market is just one single commodity. Unless you own thousands to millions of stock, you can't directly influence the company, and can only just trade it. Stocks are also called shares.
Stock marketing is a business marketing to Investment and many products launch in market
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I'm 15 and interested in business and don't know what this is. I've read around and saw that it's the aggregation of buyers and sellers. Does that mean there is a stock market for different products and categories of products?
For example is there a stock market for CPU's, hard drives, and external hard drives? Or would these things be categorized under one type of stock market?
