Stock basics

I guess I won't really learn about how to invest in stocks unless I know what stocks are. What I know is that stock is owning a part of a company. That was pretty much all I knew. Maybe that's why my investment hasn't been doing all that great in the past.

There are 2 kinds of stocks:

1. Common share - It's 1 kind of stock for the company. Everyone owns it the same way.
2. Diff classes of stock - So apparently some companies don't like to let everyone to vote on everything. They decided that for certain important issues for the company, a different set of stock owners can make the decisions. I don't know, it sounds kinda fishy. It's like come and invest but you don't get a say on things. Media companies do that a lot.. no wonder.

Stocks are traded like in the movies. Someone yells to sell in a big old market, and someone yells to buy. Well, except Nasdaq. They have market makers. The "market makers" buys when someone is ready to sell, and sells when someone is ready to buy. Market makers are such experts that they can make money from trading low and selling high.

I was gonna blog on options, but it is totally new for me. I'll dedicate the next post on that and maybe a few other things on stocks.