As I understand it, when people buy a share of stock, the price goes up. When people sell it, the price goes down. So what does this have to do with the company itself that this stock represents? For example, if a bunch of people wanted to make Apple’s stock price go down, they could just agree to sell their shares. So what does the actual stock price have to do with the company?
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There’s a lot that goes into it overall, but as the other commenter said, stock is literally ownership of a tiny part of the company. When a company goes public, it breaks itself up into many shares and sells them for the public to buy. If you look up a stock online, you will see something called the [market cap](https://www.investopedia.com/terms/m/marketcapitalization.asp) which is the total dollar value of all of those shares. So if the price of the shares drops, the market cap will drop as well (and vice versa). Then, since a company’s market cap is one way people value a company, a change in that value implies a change in the company’s value.
Speaking on stock transactions, there are a few types out there, but it’s important to know that you can either transact at the market price or at a price you specify (one way to do this is a [limit order](https://www.investopedia.com/terms/l/limitorder.asp)).
If the stock of Company A just sold for $99, I might be interested in selling the share I have, but I want to specify that I’ll only sell if someone gives me $100. On the other hand, my friend is interested in buying a share, but he wants a good deal and will only buy if someone is willing to sell it to him for $98. The difference between these two prices is the [bid-ask spread](https://www.investopedia.com/terms/b/bid-askspread.asp). In this case, we are at a stalemate until a [market order](https://www.investopedia.com/terms/m/marketorder.asp) comes into play. This type of order is someone who enters the market and says they want to buy or sell at whatever price will get the deal done, meaning if someone wants to buy a share they will do so for the $100 I’m asking for, and if they want to sell a share they will do so at the $98 my friend wanted. This is how the prices of a stock go up and down.
It’s very important to note though that I’ve used round numbers in this example. Usually the difference between the bid price and the ask price are much smaller and we don’t usually transact one share at a time. In addition, there are other people in the market, so some people who own a share may only want to sell at $101 or will only buy at $97, in which case I or my friend would transact first, and then these other orders would be next in line.
There is a lot more to the market, but hopefully my explanation made sense. Happy to answer any other questions as I can.
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