WHAT ARE SHARES

Shares, as the name says, are shares in a limited company. Each shareholder is a partial-owner of the company in which they have bought shares and investors can buy and sell their shares on the stock exchanges. Companies on incorporation issue shares, (also called equities) and later perhaps when they are building up a business. The original shareholders might still own them, or they may have sold them to someone else through the stock market. If the company makes a profit, the shareholders normally have some of it passed to them in the form of dividends.