Define The Stock Market - by William Smith

Define The Stock Market - by William Smith: "The Stock Market is a market for the trading of company stocks, and the likes of the same. In Stock Market both of these are securities listed on a stock exchange as well as those that are only traded privately.

Though it may seem common, the term Stock Market is a somewhat abstract concept for the mechanism that enables the trading of company stocks. It is usually also used to describe the totality of all stocks in the market and indeed other securities, with the exception of bonds, commodities, and derivatives.

The term market is used especially to apply within one country as, to put up with within the phrase 'the Stock Market was up today', or within the term ' Stock Market bubble'. Bonds are still traditionally traded in an informal, over-the-counter market known as the bond market.

Commodities are usually traded in commodities markets, and derivatives are traded in a variety of markets but like bonds, mostly 'over-the-counter'. The size of the worldwide 'bond market' is estimated at $45 Trillion and the size of the Stock Market is estimated as about half that.

It must be noted though that the derivatives market, because it is stated in terms of notional outstanding amounts, cannot be directly compared to a stock or fixed income market, which refers to the actual value in a market."