Stock Market Today

The stock markets in New York have traditionally been open for trading from 9:30 am until 4 pm EST, every Monday through Friday (with the exception  of certain holidays). As interest in the stock market has grown, however, there has been greater and greater demand for additional trading hours after the markets close. The markets [...]

ECNs If the thought of your broker making money off the bid/ask spread makes you less than thrilled, you should be aware that there are alternatives for trading, such as Electronic Communications Networks (ECNs). Electronic Communications Networks (ECNs) represent orders in Nasdaq stocks; they internally match buy and sell orders or represent the highest bid [...]

Before you start trading  stocks, it’s a good idea to understand the process of trading. Most buyers in this country are accustomed to retail shopping, where the prices are set beforehand by the seller. The stock market operates more like an auction, in which both buyers and sellers are actively setting the prices at the [...]

Dividends A dividend is a portion of a company’s earnings that is returned to shareholders. Dividends provide an added incentive (in the form of a return on your investment) to own stock in stable companies even if they are not experiencing much growth. Many companies — mature and young, large and small — pay a [...]

In addition  to issuing buy, hold, and sell recommendations, analysts also issue earnings estimates  for companies. These earnings estimates are earnings per share numbers that the analyst believes a particular company will report  in its next quarterly  statement . Earnings estimates have become increasingly important on Wall Street in recent years, as companies that “beat” [...]