Unit Introduction – Stock Market Basics

The concept of investing is simple – putting your savings to work to help it grow over time. Investing leverages the idea of compounding returns to generate wealth. For example, if you are able to save $50 a month for 10 years as cash, you will have saved up $6,000. However, if you were to invest that $50 per month and earn a 10% annual return (about the average for the stock market as a whole), it will have grown to over $10,000.

The stock market is regulated by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The SEC’s primary mission is to protect investors and maintain fair, orderly, and efficient markets. It requires public companies to disclose meaningful financial information so investors can make informed decisions, and it works to prevent fraud, insider trading, and market manipulation.

This section is all about understanding the basics of investing, and some of the key concepts you need to be an investor yourself – like what are some of the basic types of investments (like stocks), how to conduct basic research, and what it means to buy an investment. Many of the examples will also leverage the investing simulation to give you some hands-on experience on investing for yourself!