The New York Stock Exchange

In its simplest form, the NYSE (and the other stock exchanges like American, NASDAQ, etc.) is much like a food supermarket. Unlike a small convenience store, a supermarket has hundreds, if not thousands of food choices for customers. The NYSE offers thousands of varieties of stocks for investors.

Combine the number of buying/selling options with a “flea market” mentality, where sellers want $X for their stock and buyers want to pay $X minus $Y, and you understand the basics of the NYSE. The addition of volumes of data that apply to each company and the sophisticated technology that permits real time trading, covered call writing, online Wall Street access, and many more trading options and you see how the New York Stock Exchange works.

As you learn to trade stocks, you’ll see that the NYSE (and the other exchanges) serves as a “highway” to transport you from a personal buy/sell decision to a completed transaction. Some Wall Street training courses, like the Investing 101 course offered here, may complicate your perception of the mechanics involved. Therefore, try to keep the image of a supermarket or flea market vivid to keep the process as simple as possible.