Stock basics

Last major update: 05/25/08

Introduction
A stock share (also known as an equity share) represents ownership in a corporation.

The two familiar types of stock shares are "common stock" and "preferred stock." Owners of common stock have voting rights to elect board members of the corporation. Preferred stock typically has no voting rights but is legally entitled to dividends before other shareholders. Holding common stock in a corporation allows a shareholder the right to receive dividends from the company, and gives the shareholder a right to the company's assets during bankruptcy liquidation, though not before all creditors have been paid first. Holding stock may result in capital appreciation, as the demand for the stock goes up as the company grows its profits.

Buying and Selling
Purchasing individual stock may be done through either direct investment with the company (through a dividend reinvestment plan, for example), or through a brokerage account. Buying and selling through a brokerage account usually involves a commission paid to the broker. Many discount brokerages offer commissions under $20, and some even offer free commissions for certain situations. Full service brokerages can charge anywhere from $50 to $200 a trade depending on their rates, the number of shares purchased, and how often the stock is traded.

Nation
Stocks are traded on stock exchanges all over the world. Generally, buying stock on an exchange of a smaller or more underdeveloped country can result in higher costs to the buyer. In the U.S., an American Depository Receipt (more commonly known as ADR) is a type of stock traded on U.S. exchanges that represents ownership of a non U.S. corporation. ADRs allow U.S. investors the ability to more easily and cheaply buy stock in corporations from many countries.

Sector
Stocks may also be classified by the sector of business or industry where the corporation makes its revenue and profits. MSCI and S&P have created the widely used GICS global system of business sectors, which divides companies into four levels: 10 sectors, 24 industry groups, 64 industries, and 139 sub-industries. The ten sectors are listed below:

A detailed description of the GICS sectors is available at Sector Descriptions.

Size
Stocks may classified by the size of the corporation. This is most commonly done looking at the market capitalization. Market capitalization is simply a measurement found by taking a stock's current share price and multiplying it by the number of stock shares outstanding.

Exact market cap ranges will vary among different financial and rating institutions, but there are three different terms commonly used to describe stocks by their general size.

Large Capitalization Stocks: Large cap stocks have a market cap over $10 billion dollars.

Mid Capitalization Stocks: Mid cap stocks have a market cap between $2 billion and $10 billion dollars.

Small Capitalization Stocks: Small cap stocks have a market cap between $300 million and $2 billion dollars.

While these are the most common market cap references, there are also some less commonly used: Mega Cap, Micro cap, and Nano cap. Market cap terms are relative and are constantly changing as companies get bigger and smaller.