How the stock market works

[macms]

Once upon a time, in a village, a man appeared and announced to the villagers that he would buy monkeys for $10 each.

The villagers seeing that there were many monkeys around, went out to
the forest, and started catching them. The man bought thousands at $10
and as supply started to diminish, the villagers stopped their effort.
He further announced that he would now buy at $20. This renewed the
efforts of the villagers and they started catching monkeys again.
Soon the supply diminished even further and people started going back to
their farms. The offer increased to $25 each and the supply of monkeys
became so little that it was an effort to even see a monkey, let alone catch it! The man now announced that he would buy monkeys at $50 ! However, since he had to go to the city on some business, his assistant would now buy on behalf of him.

In the absence of the man, the assistant told the villagers. "Look at
all these monkeys in the big cage that the man has collected. I will
sell them to you at $35 and when the man returns from the city, you can
sell them to him for $50 each." The villagers rounded up with all their
savings and bought all the monkeys.

Then they never again saw the man nor his assistant, only monkeys everywhere!

Now you have a better understanding of how the stock market works.