Here We Go.. Trading

The shares of a company may in general be transferred from shareholders to other parties by sale or other mechanisms, unless prohibited. Most jurisdictions have established laws and regulations governing such transfers, particularly if the issuer is a publicly-traded entity.

The desire of stockholders to trade their shares has led to the establishment of stock exchanges. A stock exchange is an organization that provides a marketplace for trading shares and other derivatives and financial products. Today, investors are usually represented by stock brokers who buy and sell shares of a wide range of companies on the exchanges. A company may list its shares on an exchange by meeting and maintaining the listing requirements of a particular stock exchange. In the United States, through the inter-market quotation system, stocks listed on one exchange can also be traded on other participating exchanges, including the Electronic Communication Networks (ECNs), such as Archipelago or Instinet.

Many large non-U.S companies choose to list on a U.S. exchange as well as an exchange in their home country in order to broaden their investor base. These companies must maintain a block of shares at a bank in the US, typically a certain percentage of their capital. On this basis, the holding bank establishes American Depositary Shares and issues an American Depository Receipt (ADR) for each share a trader acquires. Likewise, many large U.S. companies list their shares at foreign exchanges to raise capital abroad.

Small companies that do not qualify and cannot meet the listing requirements of the major exchanges may be traded over the counter (OTC) by an off-exchange mechanism in which trading occurs directly between parties. The major OTC markets in the United States are the electronic quotation systems OTC Bulletin Board (OTCBB) and the Pink OTC Markets (Pink Sheets) where individual retail investors are also represented by a brokerage firm and the quotation service's requirements for a company to be listed are minimal. Shares of companies in bankruptcy proceeding are usually listed by these quotation services after the stock is delisted from an exchange.