Stock Exchange in US
The easiest route for you to go down will be to consult wikipedia, which will provide a comprehensive list of all US stock exchanges (there are plenty more than the ones you list!). Then visit the websites for those that are of interest to you, where you will find a list of holiday dates along with the trading schedule for specific products and the settlement dates where relevant. In answer to the other part of your question, yes, a stock can trade on multiple exchanges. Typically (unless you instruct otherwise), your broker will route your order to the exchange where it can be matched at the most favorable price to you at that time.
Thanks to the other answers, I now know what to google for. Frankfurt Stock Exchange: http://en.boerse-frankfurt.de/equities/newissues London Stock Exchange: http://www.londonstockexchange.com/statistics/new-issues-further-issues/new-issues-further-issues.htm Try Google Finance Screener ; you will be able to filter for NASDAQ and NYSE exchanges. "NASDAQ OMX Group owns NASDAQ, a stock exchange. It is a corporation, and is listed on the NASDAQ as NDAQ. It makes money by: source NASDAQ also charges for market data services, found in the NASDAQ ""Datastore"". Other information about the fees charged by NYSE and NASDAQ may be found in the Investopedia article The NYSE And Nasdaq: How They Work." "All public US equity exchanges are closed on the 9 US trading holidays (see below) and open on all other days.  Exchanges also close early (13:00 ET) on the Friday after Thanksgiving and on the day before Independence Day if Independence Day is being observed on a Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, or Friday.  (Some venues have extended trading hours as a matter of course; for them an ""early close"" might be later than 13:00 ET.) To answer the second question, yes, if you know NASDAQ's or AMEX's holiday schedule, then you know NYSE's (modulo the timing of their early close).  I'm not sure about the options exchanges; they're not regulated the same way and are a good example of exchanges with extended trading hours in the first place. The US trading holidays are as follows.  Note that trading holidays are not the same as federal or bank holidays, which include Columbus Day and Veterans Day but do not include Good Friday." "Depends. The short answer is yes; HSBC, for instance, based in New York, is listed on both the LSE and NYSE. Toyota's listed on the TSE and NYSE. There are many ways to do this; both of the above examples are the result of a corporation owning a subsidiary in a foreign country by the same name (a holding company), which sells its own stock on the local market. The home corporation owns the majority holdings of the subsidiary, and issues its own stock on its ""home country's"" exchange. It is also possible for the same company to list shares of the same ""pool"" of stock on two different exchanges (the foreign exchange usually lists the stock in the corporation's home currency and the share prices are near-identical), or for a company to sell different portions of itself on different exchanges. However, these are much rarer; for tax liability and other cost purposes it's usually easier to keep American monies in America and Japanese monies in Japan by setting up two ""copies"" of yourself with one owning the other, and move money around between companies as necessary. Shares of one issue of one company's stock, on one exchange, are the same price regardless of where in the world you place a buy order from. However, that doesn't necessarily mean you'll pay the same actual value of currency for the stock. First off, you buy the stock in the listed currency, which means buying dollars (or Yen or Euros or GBP) with both a fluctuating exchange rate between currencies and a broker's fee (one of those cost savings that make it a good idea to charter subsidiaries; could you imagine millions a day in car sales moving from American dealers to Toyota of Japan, converted from USD to Yen, with a FOREX commission to be paid?). Second, you'll pay the stock broker a commission, and he may charge different rates for different exchanges that are cheaper or more costly for him to do business in (he might need a trader on the floor at each exchange or contract with a foreign broker for a cut of the commission)." I'm not aware of any method to own US stocks, but you can trade them as contract for difference, or CFDs as they are commonly known. Since you're hoping to invest around $1000 this might be a better option since you can use leverage. In the world of stock exchanges, the result depends on the market state of the traded stock. There are two possibilities, (a) a trade occurs or (b) no trade occurs. During the so-called auction phase, bid and ask prices may overlap, actually they usually do. During an open market, when bid and ask match, trades occur. I was wondering what relations are between brokerage companies and exchanges? Are brokers representing investors to trade on exchanges? Yes...but a broker may also buy and sell stocks for his own account. This is called broker-delaer firm. For individual investors, what are some cons and pros of trading on the exchanges directly versus indirectly via brokers? Doesn't the former save the investors any costs/expenses paid to the brokers? Yes, but to trade directly on an exchange, you need to register with them. That costs money and only a limited number of people can register I believe. Note that some (or all?) exchanges have their websites where I think trading can be done electronically, such as NASDAQ and BATS? Can almost all stocks be found and traded on almost every exchange? In other words, is it possible that a popular stock can only be found and traded on one exchange, but not found on the other exchange? If needed to be more specific, I am particularly interested in the U.S. case,and for example, Apple's stock. Yes, it is very much possible with smaller companies. Big companies are usually on multiple exchanges. What are your advices for choosing exchange and choosing brokerage companies? What exchanges and brokerage companies do you recommend? For brokerage companies, a beginner can go with discount broker. For sophisticated investors can opt for full service brokers. Usually your bank will have a brokerage firm. For exchanges, it depends...if you are in US, you should send to the US exchanges. IF you wish to send to other exchanges in other countries, you should check with the broker about that. The stock exchange here serves as a meeting place for current shareholders who want to sell their shares to someone else. This has nothing to do with liquidation, which is a transaction between the company and its shareholders. A company does not have to be listed on an exchange to make distributions to shareholders. You don't have to go through an exchange. That wasn't the problem. It was that the people trading on them wouldn't be willing to take your offer. An exchange can't just list a company. They need that company's consent and the company need's the exchange's consent. I don't know if you're aware of this but that was also an entirely new disaster during Facebook's IPO. Computer glitches didn't help. What you're talking about is a called a secondary market, kind of. Stock exchanges offer those too, especially for options.   That's the typical stock footage you see of guys on wall street yelling and screaming while throwing paper up in the air. i have been trading with dollarbird Trading firm for past 1 year there is absolutly no problem everything is fine you can google them to find anything about them.they have provided me with LASER trading platform which requires a bit of training as in to know the software but i can say one thing trading in US Equity market exp. is very diffrent from indian market they are very mature market and highly liqd and have good volatality to trade best equity market to trade with great trading platform you should have a exp. to trade on US equity it is diffrent "There are basically two different markets for ADRs and ordinary shares. 1) The American market, 2) the ""local"" market. The following is not true for most stocks in ""developed"" markets. But it is often true that the American market (for ADRs) is far more liquid than the local market for ordinary shares of a developing country. For instance, there was a time when the ADRs of Telmex (Telefonos of Mexico) was the fifth most traded stock in the world, after Exxon (before its merger with Mobil), IBM, Microsoft, and A T&T, meaning that it was easy to trade with low fees on the NYSE. It was much harder and slower to buy the local shares of Telmex in Mexico, on the Mexican exchange. Also, the accompanying currency transactions were harder to execute with the ord, because you have to settle in local currency and pay an FX commission. With the ADR, the exchange rate is ""built"" into the (dollar) price, and you settle in dollars." The missing information is at the end of the first line: the price is from NASDAQ (most specifically Nasdaq Global Select), which is a stock exchange in the USA, so the price is in US Dollars. "There's a market for single stock futures.  The market (however small) is OneChicago, ""an Equity Finance Exchange offering security futures products.""  I don't know how easy access is for retail investors." Yes many people operate accounts in usa from outside usa. You need a brokerage account opened in the name of your sister and then her username and password. Remember that brokerages may check the location of login and may ask security questions before login. So when your sister opens her account , please get the security questions. Also note that usa markets open ( 7.00 pm or 8.00 pm IST depending on daylight savings in usa). So this means when they close at 4:00 pm ET, it will be 1:30 or 2:30 am in India. This means it will affect your sleeping hours if you intend to day trade. Also understand that there are some day trading restrictions and balances associate. Normally brokerages need 25,000 $ for you to be a day trader. Finally CFA is not a qualification to be a trader and desire to become a trader doesn't make one a trader. TO give an analogy , just because you want to be a cricketer doesn't make you one. It needs a lot of practice and discipline.Also since in bangladesh , you will always convert the usa amount to bangladeshi currency and think of profits and losses in those terms. This might actually be bad.