What is the stock market?

When a company wants to raise money, it can sell shares to the public through an initial public offering. Those shares then trade on exchanges such as the New York Stock Exchange or Nasdaq, where prices move constantly based on supply and demand. Investors profit if share prices rise or if companies pay dividends from their earnings. Indexes like the S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average track groups of stocks to show how the market is performing overall. The Amsterdam Stock Exchange, founded in 1602 to trade shares of the Dutch East India Company, is often considered the oldest.