Unanswered Questions

Simple Answer, it stands for Pink Sheets. It comes from the pink paper on which the National Quotation Bureau originally printed information on OTC stocks. Comparable information on OTC bonds was printed on yellow paper.

For more information on the basics of stocks, I wrote a series of posts on my blog all about reading a stock quote. Check it out - http://thecuriousinvestor.com/category/tutorials/reading-a-stock-quote/

Stock is a piece of ownership of a company. When a company needs to acquire extra money to help grow the business, they can sell some or all of the ownership of the company in the form of stocks. So if you were to buy 100% of a company's stock, you would own the whole company. If you own enough stock you also have some decision-making power within the company.

A prolonged period in which investment prices rise faster than their historical average. A bull market tends to be associated with increasing investor confidence, motivating investors to buy in anticipation of future price increases and future capital gains. - wikipedia

A Bear Market is a prolonged period in which investment prices fall, accompanied by widespread pessimism. Investors anticipating further losses are often motivated to sell, with negative sentiment feeding on itself in a vicious circle.

Buying and selling the same stock during one day. All positions are usually closed before the market close of the trading day.

A mutual fund is a professionally managed pool of money from many investors and that is invested it in stocks, bonds, short-term money market instruments, and/or other securities. The mutual fund will have a fund manager that trades the pooled money on a regular basis. As of early 2008, the worldwide value of all mutual funds totals more than $26 trillion.

Short selling is the act of selling stock that you don't own at a high price by borrowing it from a brokerage and then buying it back at a lower price in the future. The hope is that the stock price will drop in value and a profit can be made. This is an advanced technique that has strict requirements and higher risks.

This video on FeedTheBull has a great explanation of what short selling is, http://www.feedthebull.com/video/thrasher-university-what-short-selling.

Dollar Cost Averaging is the act of buying the same dollar amount of a stock each month. This allows you to buy more shares when the stock's price is low and fewer shares when it is high. It can often be more successful than buying the same number of shares each month.

U.S. markets are usually open 9:30am-4:00pm Eastern time, except on holidays.

Dividends are payments made by a corporation to its shareholders. It is the portion of corporate profits paid out to stockholders. When a corporation earns a profit or surplus, that money can be put to two uses: it can either be re-invested in the business (called retained earnings), or it can be paid to the shareholders as a dividend.

Initial public offering (IPO), also referred to simply as a "public offering" or "flotation," is when a company issues common stock or shares to the public for the first time. They are often issued by smaller, younger companies seeking capital to expand, but can also be done by large privately-owned companies looking to become publicly traded.

A penny stock is a common stock that trades for less than five dollars a share and are traded over the counter (OTC) through quotation services such as the OTC Bulletin Board or the Pink Sheets.

The SEC is the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The SEC is an independent agency of the United States government which holds primary responsibility for enforcing the federal securities laws and regulating the securities industry, the nation's stock and options exchanges, and other electronic securities markets. The SEC was created by section 4 of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934.

The OTC Bulletin Board or OTCBB is an electronic quotation system in the United States that displays real-time quotes, last-sale prices, and volume information for many over-the-counter (OTC) equity securities that are not listed on the NASDAQ stock exchange or a national securities exchange.

The term quantitative easing describes an extreme form of monetary policy used to stimulate an economy where interest rates are either at, or close to, zero. Normally, a central bank stimulates the economy indirectly by lowering interest rates but when it cannot lower them any further it can attempt to seed the financial system with new money through quantitative easing.