Stock Market

Research papers on the stock market cover a wide variety of topics. Paper Masters suggests you narrow your topic so that you can give an in-depth coverage of whatever market, economic indicator or aspect of the stock market you need studied.

The stock market is any collection of buyers and sellers of stocks, or shares in a publicly-traded company. Most major nations have a stock market, and the daily average of the market often serves as a bellwether of that nation's economic health. The largest and most-well known stock market is the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). Other notable global markets include the following:

• FTSE in London
• The Dax in Frankfort
• The Nikkei in Tokyo

The stock market first emerged during the Renaissance, when Venetian bankers began trading government securities. With the Age of Exploration, the Dutch East India Company, founded in 1602, became the first joint-stock company in history, traded on the Amsterdam Exchange. The New York Stock Exchange, the world's largest stock market, began in 1792 with the signing of the Buttonwood Agreement, and by the middle of the 19th century, the NYSE had located its headquarters to Wall Street.

Any stock market is one of the major ways in which corporations raise money, with the sale of stock permitting capital to flow into the company. An increase in the sale of stock indicates growth in the economy. Sudden sell-offs, sometimes called panics or crashes, can also occur, indicating either global turmoil or significant downturn in a nation's economy. A crash in one stock market can spread to others, especially in today's interconnected world. The October 1929 crash of the NYSE led to the panic on a global scale and the inauguration of the Great Depression.