How the Stock Market Works

Download or read book How the Stock Market Works written by John M. Dalton and published by Prentice Hall. This book was released on 1993 with total page 354 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The second edition of the popular How The Stock Market Works updates and expands its solid introduction to Wall Street for individual investors and beginning financial professionals alike. This primer explains the workings of the securities industry as a whole, including the initial public offering (getting the stocks to the marketplace), types of stocks, who's who inside the brokerage firm, executing orders on the Exchange floor, the role of the specialist, the over-the-counter market, back office operations (buy/sell and processing procedures), and the major theories of market analysis. The second edition has six new chapters, covering why individuals and institutions buy stocks: dividends and capital gains, risks and rewards; how to read the financial press ... stock symbols, dividend, yield, P/E ratio; closed-end and open-end funds ... how mutual funds are priced, bought and sold ... figuration of net asset values and offering prices; stock options ... puts and calls ... leverage ... time value and intrinsic value ... options as hedging tools; how to understand a corporate balance sheet and income statement; and how dividends and capital gains are taxed.