Our Product
The Stacks platform brings you access to the markets via your mobile device.
Develop your investment strategy through our survey-driven account creation process.
Prioritize and understand the recommended market information based on your preferred investment strategy with our tool-tips.
Choose and manage your investments in individual companies or bundles of investments (ETFs) using our market-first research and highly-visual, graph-centric user interface.
Our platform build is in progress, but you can sign up to receive product updates by clicking the link below.
the stock market
The purpose of the stock market is to match buyers and sellers in order to negotiate the trade of stocks - identically measured units of publicly traded companies, also known as shares.
Stockbrokers (those who want to buy a stock or who represent someone who wants to buy a stock) propose (bid) a price they’re willing to pay for a particular stock. The highest price offered is identified as the “Best Bid.”
Owners of stock or the stockbroker who represents the owner make their willingness to sell known by proposing a price they’re willing to sell a stock for (this is called an ask). The lowest price offered is identified as the “Best Ask.”
In this way, a stock market functions similarly to an auction in order to determine the price of a stock.
The “Spread” is the difference between the Best Bid and Best Ask. The buyer and the seller then negotiate a price somewhere in the middle of the Best Bid and the Best Ask and the difference is taken as a fee by a third-party intermediary who executes the trade on the buyer and seller’s behalf.
The share price of a stock tells you the current market value - this can change frequently based on how many investors are attempting to either buy or sell the stock. The number of times a stock is bought or sold in a certain amount of time is known as the trade volume.
Many factors can affect the price of a stock - the actions of companies, economic and political forces, as well as impactful news stories.
Non-publicly traded companies can raise money on their own behalf by introducing shares to sell on the stock market. This occurs either during an initial public offering period (also known as an “IPO”) or a secondary public offering period.
Other things can also be traded on the stock market - the umbrella term for these things are known as “securities,” such as exchange traded funds or mutual funds, of which stocks are also a part.
Is trading stocks risky?
Absolutely - it’s critical to understand both the short and long term risks of different investment strategies. It is possible for the price of a stock you own to drop to $0, which means you’ve lost all of the money you invested. Understanding and executing a well-thought out investment strategy will help you offset some of this risk.
How do you invest in the stock market?
All you need to buy and sell stocks is an account through a brokerage company, like Stacks Financial LLC. As a brokerage company, the law requires us to execute trades on your behalf at the best available price, as well as clearly communicate any commissions we are charging to you (which we would do anyway, even if the law didn’t require us to do so).
Have any questions? Feel free to reach out to us using the contact form accessible by the link below.