Stock Exchanges For Beginners
NYSE, NASDAQ, Hang Seng and LSE are some of the terms that you will be hearing quite a lot when you start your journey into the new world called stock markets.
While those terms seems weird for your ears, no need get bothered by them. They are acronyms for several stock exchanges from around the globe. Those stock exchanges are actually the place for any potential buyers to meet with the sellers and shares exchange hands. The oldest stock exchange in the world is the NYSE or the New York Stock Exchange. Most companies in the US try to get themselves listed here. There is a certain financial and well as industrial criteria that the companies need to meet to get themselves to list here. This exchange is located on the Wall Street.
For trading at NYSE you need to be either a registered broker with NYSE or you need to have an arrangement with an entity who is a registered broker at NYSE. It is not an easy thing to become a broker at NYSE and it costs a huge amount of money may be say a million dollars.
Similar to NYSE is American stock exchange which is again in the financial district of the country called New York. The American exchange has stocks for trading but also has options for trading. The AMEX can trade smaller companies than traded in NYSE and hence it is attractive to a lot of companies.
NASDAQ is the baby of them all though not in terms of the sheer size of companies listed on it and the full form of NASDAQ is National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations. It began in 1971 and has almost any company you could think of listed there. Historically though it was known for technology companies like Microsoft and Intel and a lot of new technology start ups like to list here. This exchange does not have a physical building and it works a computer network where buyers and sellers meet through computer software and sell or buy stocks.
If you are international investor there are stock exchanges apart from America in other countries which you will keep hearing like the Bombay Stock Exchange, Hong Kong Stock Exchange or Hang Seng, Luxembourg stock Exchange or even the FTSE.
Make sure you enough about the exchange you want to trade on as that can help you decide the initial amounts for investing and the ease of investing.