How do the stock exchange markets work?

If you want to learn the basics of the stock exchange market, you can watch the following videos and presentations. They explain how the stock exchange market and other financial markets work in a very didactic way. The vocabulary is easy to understand and, if you like economics, you will enjoy and learn.

The first presentation explains the basic concepts and terminology used by traders: 

The stock exchange market is not the only place where people can buy and sell financial products. There are other markets, such as the currency and the commodities´ (raw materials) markets.  The next presentation explains how these financial markets work:

This video is a piece of an animated film of 1952 called What makes us tick. The film was produced to promote the stock market as the engine of the wealth of the U.S.A. 

If you want to watch the whole film, visit the following link: 


http://wn.com/nyse_what_makes_us_tick__1952

And finally, this is a piece of a British TV- show called The last laugh, similar to La hora de José Mota. In 2008 the comedians John Bird and John Fortune made a very good explanation of the causes of the recent economic crisis and its relation with the stock exchange market. The video includes subtitles in Spanish:

Speculators

Speculators are people who buy and sell goods, stocks and shares or bonds with the purpose of making profit with the variation of their value. They are not interested in the economic situation of the companies or the States that sell bonds. They are only focused on getting big profit margins. They play dangerous games, assuming great risks, but they also can put the economies of entire countries at serious risk. They move huge amounts of money from one stock market to another, betting on some values and provoking the collapse of some others. They use the stock exchange markets as casinos. The worst thing is that this is perfectly legal.

Here you have some cartoons that can help you to understand how speculators behave:

 Source: http://www.truthdig.com/cartoon/item/speculators_a_cartoon_from_austria_20100516/

Source: http://www.cartoonstock.com/newscartoons/directory/i/international_speculators.asp

The stock exchange market in some cartoons

Many times the stock exchange market doesn´t work according to logic. The following cartoons can help you understand other factors that influence the stock exchange market´s dynamics:

Source: http://www.businesscartoons.co.uk/shop/index.php?act=viewProd&productId=2564

Source: http://www.businesscartoons.co.uk/shop/index.php?act=viewProd&productId=2564

Source: http://pensionpulse.blogspot.com/2010/05/paradox-of-market-chaos.html

If you want to get more information about how the stock exchange market works, you can visit the following link:

http://www.piggybank.co.uk/money.php