Stocks and shares meaning. Types of stocks and shares.

 Stock is the capital raised by a corporation or joint-stock company through the issuance and distribution of shares(capitsl represents obligations, and is liquidares as money for trade, and owned by legal entities; it is in the form of capital assets, traded in financial markets; its market value is not based on the historical accumulation of money invested but on the perception by the market of its expected revenues and of the risk entailed).

 A person or organization that holds at least a partial share of stock is called a shareholder.

 The stocks and shares are listed and traded in online stock exchanges, which is termed as online share trading. The Participants in the stock market range from amall individual stock investors to large hedge fund traders, who can be based anywhere. Their orders usually end up with a professional at a stock exchange, who executes the order. 

  Stock or stocks and shares have noe become synonymous withsecurities and the original distinction between shares and stocks has become blurred. The term stock however, is now coming to mean exclusively a fixed-interest security, that is i.e. loan stock in a company or local or central government stock.

  Types of stocks and shares

 Common stock also referred as common/ordinary shares, or equities, are , as the name implies, the most usual and commonly held form of stock in a corporation. Equity means ownership, and stocks are ownership in a corporation.

 Preferred stock, sometimes called preferred shares, have priority over common stock in the distribution dividends and assets. More preffered shares provide no voting rights in corporate decision matters. However, some preferred shares have special voting rights to approve certain extraordinary events(such as the issuance of new shares, or the approval of the acquisition of the company), or to elect directors.

Duall class stock is shares issued for a single company with varying classes indicating different rights on voting and dividend payments. Each kind of shares has its own class of shareholders entitling different rights.

Treasury stocks are shares that have been bought back from public. Treasury Stock is considered issued, but not outstanding.

Golden shares is a special share giving its holder a right to veto the Board's decisions. Usually, a government owns golden shares of important enterprises that were privatized. Golden shares are mostly used in European countries.

A share is a unit of account for various financial instruments including stocks, mutuual funds, limited partnerships, and REIT's(Real Estate Investment Trust). The income received from shares is called a dividend, and a person who owns shares is called a shareholder. A share is one of  a finite number of equal portions in the capital of a company, entitling the owner to a proportion of distributed, non-reinvested profits known as dividends and to a portion of the value of the company in case of liquidation.