14 Most Interesting Facts About Stock Markets
Amazing Facts About Stock Markets: There are many interesting and amazing facts about stock markets that you may not have come across.
In this article, we bring you the 14 most interesting and amazing facts about the stock market.
BSE in India
- Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) in India has the highest number of listed companies in the world with an estimated 5689 companies. National Stock Exchange (NSE) of India has around 1750 companies.
Most Expensive Stock
- The most expensive stock in world is the Warren Buffet’s Hathaway, Class A, which is priced at USD 2,13,330 per share. The reason for such a high price is that the company doesn’t splits the shares.
Oldest Stock Exchange
- The oldest stock exchange in the world is Amsterdam Stock Exchange, which was established in 1602 by Dutch East India Company dealing with the printed stocks and bonds.
New York Curb Exchange
- The NYSE MKT LLC earlier known as American Stock Exchange (AMEX) was originally New York Curb Exchange until 1953. Because brokers used to trade their things standing by the curb of the New York City.
Indian Household Savings
- In India, out of 22124.14 INR billion household savings, only 2% goes as investment into equities. People in India are more inclined to invest their money in gold, banks and in real estate.
Bear and Bull
- The terms “Bear” and “Bull” are thought to be originated from the way of attacking by each animal, with the bull thrusting its horn up in the air, while a bear swiping downwards. Historically, the middleman used to speculate on the future price of the bearskins by selling them which they yet had to receive from the tappers, with the expectation that the price will drop. They used to call the middleman as bear jobbers and in short “bears” which is known to describe the downturn in the market. As bull was assumed to be opposite of the bear at that time so it was termed as the upward movement of the market.
Seasonsal impact on markets
- Historically, on an average the market declines mostly in the month of September. The three leading indicator DJIA (Dow Jones), S&P 500 (Standard and Poor) and NASDAQ have seemed to be performing poorly in this month. One of the reasons for this is that the trading volume declines in summer as the investors take time for vacation and once they return to work, they exit positions they had build up.
Stock market crash in 1711
- The financial bubbles, dot com bubbles we had come across in the stock market aren’t the first things that happened. Way back in 1711, the share prices of South Sea Company collapsed as they were in the midst of a huge bubble.
Bad October
- October is considered as the jinxed month as the two worst stock market crashes in history occurred in this month. The first occurred in 1929 with a 25 percent declined in the share prices, and by 1932 the value of shares was just 20% of the value of shares in 1929! The next crash occurred in 1987 October when the stock market declined by one fourth!
Algorithmic Trading
- In the year 2006, one third of the all stocks traded in US and European Union was traded through Algorithmic Trading, a trading system heavily reliant on the mathematical formulas and high speed algorithms and computer programming. And by 2008, almost around 80% of trading was being done by algorithms, however due to various regulations the trading volume via algorithms in percentage terms declined after 2008.
Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA)
- The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA), a priced weighted average of 30 significant stocks traded on NYSE and NASDAQ was created by Wall Street Journal editor and Dow Jones & Company cofounder Charles Dow. However, it is named after Dow and one of his associates, Edward Jones.
Highest-volume day on the NYSE
- The highest-volume day on the NYSE (New York Stock Exchange) was on January 4, 2001, when 2,129,445,637 shares traded. The lowest volume was on March 16, 1830, when only 31 shares traded.
Trading in Fractions
- Till the year 2000, markets in US, London and Paris were trading on prices which were in fractions and not in decimals. But after year 2000, this changed and all these markets moved to decimals. This made it easier for an average investor to better understand the value of stocks.
Securities Exchange Commission (SEC)
- The Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) in United States of America (USA) was created in 1934 by the Securities Exchange Act to regulate the securities market, prevent fraud and enforce laws that require companies to provide full disclosure regarding their financial information.
