FUNCTION AND PURPOSE OF STOCK MARKET

The stock market is one of the most important sources for companies to raise money. This allows businesses to be publicly traded, or raise additional capital for expansion by selling shares of ownership of the company in a public market. The liquidity that an exchange provides affords investors the ability to quickly and easily sell securities. This is an attractive feature of investing in stocks, compared to other less liquid investments such as real estate.

History has shown that the price of shares and other assets is an important part of the dynamics of economic activity, and can influence or be an indicator of social mood. An economy where the stock market is on the rise is considered to be an up and coming economy. In fact, the stock market is often considered the primary indicator of a country's economic strength and development. Rising share prices, for instance, tend to be associated with increased business investment and vice versa. Share prices also affect the wealth of households and their consumption. Therefore, central banks tend to keep an eye on the control and behavior of the stock market and, in general, on the smooth operation of financial system functions. Financial stability is the raison d'être of central banks.

Exchanges also act as the clearinghouse for each transaction, meaning that they collect and deliver the shares, and guarantee payment to the seller of a security. This eliminates the risk to an individual buyer or seller that the counterparty could default on the transaction.
The smooth functioning of all these activities facilitates economic growth in that lower costs and enterprise risks promote the production of goods and services as well as employment. In this way the financial system contributes to increased prosperity. An important aspect of modern financial markets, however, including the stock markets, is absolute discretion. For example, in the USA stock markets we see more unrestrained acceptance of any firm than in smaller markets. Such as, Chinese firms with no significant value to American society to just name one segment. This profits USA bankers on Wall Street, as they reap large commissions from the placement, and the Chinese company which yields funds to invest in China. Yet accrues no intrinsic value to the long-term stability of the American economy, rather just short-term profits to American business men and the Chinese; although, when the foreign company has a presence in the new market, there can be benefits to the market's citizens. Conversely, there are very few large foreign corporations listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange TSX, Canada's largest stock exchange. This discretion has insulated Canada to some degree to worldwide financial conditions. In order for the stock markets to truly facilitate economic growth via lower costs and better employment, great attention must be given to the foreign participants being allowed in.

Relation of the stock market to the modern financial system
The financial system in most western countries has undergone a remarkable transformation. One feature of this development is disintermediation. A portion of the funds involved in saving and financing flows directly to the financial markets instead of being routed via the traditional bank lending and deposit operations. The general public's heightened interest in investing in the stock market, either directly or through mutual funds, has been an important component of this process. Statistics show that in recent decades shares have made up an increasingly large proportion of households' financial assets in many countries. In the 1970s, in Sweden, deposit accounts and other very liquid assets with little risk made up almost 60 percent of households' financial wealth, compared to less than 20 percent in the 2000s. The major part of this adjustment in financial portfolios has gone directly to shares but a good deal now takes the form of various kinds of institutional investment for groups of individuals, e.g., pension funds, mutual funds, hedge funds, insurance investment of premiums, etc. The trend towards forms of saving with a higher risk has been accentuated by new rules for most funds and insurance, permitting a higher proportion of shares to bonds. Similar tendencies are to be found in other industrialized countries. In all developed economic systems, such as the European Union, the United States, Japan and other developed nations, the trend has been the same: saving has moved away from traditional (government insured) bank deposits to more risky securities of one sort or another.
"search into the box"

"Looking for more information? Use this custom search engine, a joint development by Google and STOCK TRADING. It finds highly targeted results, so you won't be wading through millions of search results"