What is the Stock Market?
In Malaysia, the Bursa Malaysia stock exchange is open from 9:00am to 5:00pm from Monday to Friday, excluding Public Holidays.
In the US, most stock markets are open from 9:30pm to 4.30am or 10.30pm to 5:30pm (Malaysian time) and is dependent on Daylight Savings.
Like the term "Hollywood," the stock market is both place and concept. There are stock markets all over the world, but when you put them all together, you have the bigger concept: a global marketplace where companies go, to grow.
A company does this by selling stock, which is partial ownership or a share of the corporation. If the company is growing, the value of each share usually goes up. (Unfortunately, the reverse is also true.)
Stockholders (otherwise referred to as shareholders) hope the company’s stock price will go up—at which point they can sell their stock for a profit. Where that happens is the stock market.
In reality, the stock market works like an auction: Sellers decide what price they’ll accept, buyers decide what they’ll pay. Stockbrokers—or computers—call out those numbers to try to find matching offers. If they do, they make the trade.