This lesson is about market movement. Stocks move. By that I mean that the price of a stock fluctuates perpetually as long as a stock market is open and there are markets all over the world. Just because the stock markets in the U.S. are closed it doesn’t mean that the price of a U.S. stock isn’t moving on markets in other parts of the world.

Stocks have 4 major prices every day – open, high, low and close. Read about this here and here and here.

There are hundreds of statistics that are kept for stocks. Some are really fundamental and basic. Some are totally esoteric and not worth worrying about. To read about some of these statistics go here and here and here.

When the majority of prices of the stock market are rising it is called a Bull Market. When the majority of prices of the stock market are falling it is called a Bear Market. Read about this here and here and here. Note that there is no definitive length for a Bull or Bear market. Note also that there will be periods of falling prices in a Bull Market and periods of rising prices in a Bear Market. As a final note the overall movement of the stock market has been a Bull Market in the long run with some Bear Markets (some very significant) happening in that Bull Market.

How long should you want to hold a stock? Warren Buffett says “Forever” with th point being that, if the stock is doing great, why sell it? You want to buy stocks that will “always” move up in value. No stock, however, does that. All of them go down. Sometimes, only for a day or two. Sometimes, for years.