Company shares
The owner of tire shoppe realised
that it would take a while for him to be able to cash in from the sale of his
business. So he decided to split the value of the business into parts or shares
through an underwriter which does that job, and came up with 100 parts of it
or 100 shares outstanding, which brings us down to $1000 per piece or $1000
per share. ($100,000 / 100 shares = $1,000 per share).
Stocks are proof that you own a part of the business issued in certificates.
It can be traded at a profit or loss since the price per share of a company
fluctuates depending on the current supply and demand for that stock. Now back
to the tire shoppe, as you noticed on the illustration there were only 100 shares
available posted on the sign, that is the number of available shares that makes
up the total value of the company. They are not infinite, and there is no such
thing as unlimited number of shares because you can't sell more than 100% of
anything otherwise those shares you bought would be worthless. It is important
to look at these figures since it is the reason why prices of the stocks you
own changes in value.
Basically, supply and demand is the reason why stock prices change in value
overtime, if we take a closer look at the result from that company's public
offering of its stocks, the total demand for the tire shoppes stock is much
more than the available supply which is just 100. The first guy ordered just
a single share, right next to him is interested in acquiring 40 shares, further
down, another ordered 10 and then 50 shares for the guy who's got the most cash
and then 15 shares for that last guy to the right. All in all there were 116
buy orders for tire shoppes stocks. But since there were only a limited number
of Tire shoppes shares, the result would be an increase of per share value as
the price would prop up in order to facilitate the sale of 100 shares to the
highest bidders. The opposite thing happens if that positive buy orders decrease
and would trigger a drop in per share value which we will cover later on other
sections.