Why does a stock price drop as soon an I purchase several thousand shares at market price?
Any time a large order it placed for Buy, the sell side starts increasing as the demand of Buy has gone up. [Vice Versa is also true]. Once this orders gets fulfilled, the demand drops and hence the Sell price should also lower. Depending on how much was the demand / supply without your order, the price fluctuation would vary. For examply if before your order, for this particular share the normal volume is around 100's of shares then you order would spike things up quite a bit. However if for other share the normal volume is around 100000's then your order would not have much impact. You say: Every time it seems the share price dips. Does it?  Have you collected the data?   It may just be that you are remembering the events that seem most painful at the time. To move the market with your trade you need to be dealing in a large amount of shares.    Unless the stock is illiquid (e.g most VCT in the UK), I don’t think you are dealing in that large a number; if you were then you would likely have access to a real time feed of the order book and could see what was going on. Unless you are buying millions of dollars worth of a stock at a time, your transaction is a drop in the bucket, unlikely to have any noticable effect on the stock price. As Ian says, it's more likely that you are just remembering the times when the price dropped after you bought. If you keep careful track, I suspect you will find that the price goes up more often than it goes down, or at least, that the stocks you buy go up as often as the average stock on the market goes up. If you actually kept records and found that's not true, the most likely explanation is bad luck. Or that someone has placed a voodoo curse on you. I suppose one could imagine other scenarios. Like, if you regularly buy stock based on recommendations by well-known market pundits, you could expect to see a temporary increase in price as thousands or millions of people who hear this recommendation rush to buy, and then a few days or weeks later people move on to the next recommendation, the market setttles down, and the price reverts to a more normal level. In that case, if you're on the tail end of the buying rush, you could end up paying a premium. I'm just speculating here, I haven't done a study to find if this actually happens, but it sounds plausible to me. "You might consider learning how the ""matching"" or ""pairing"" system in the market operates.  The actual exchange only happens when both a buyer and a seller overlap their respect quotes.   Sometimes orders ""go to market"" for a particular volume.  Eg get me 10,000 Microsoft shares now.  which means that the price starts at the current lowest seller, and works up the price list until the volume is met.  Like all market it trades, it has it's advantages, and it's dangers.  If you are confident Microsoft is going to bull, you want those shares now, confident you'll recoup the cost.  Where if you put in a priced order, you might get only none or some shares. Same as when you sell.  If you see the price (which is the price of the last completed ""successful"" trade.  and think ""I'm going to sell 1000 shares"". then you give the order to the market (or broker), and then the same as what happened as before.  the highest bidder gets as much as they asked for, if there's still shares left over, they go to the next bidder, and so on down the price... and the last completed ""successful"" trade is when your last sale is made at the lowest price of your batch. If you're selling, and selling 100,000 shares. And the highest bidder wants 1,000,000 shares you'll only see the price drop to that guys bid.  Why will it drop (off the quoted price?).  Because the quoted price is the LAST sale, clearly if there's someone still with an open bid on the market...then either he wants more shares than were available (the price stays same), or his bid wasn't as high as the last bid (so when you sale goes through, it will be at the price he's offering).   Which is why being able to see the price queues is important on large traders. It is also why it can be important put stops and limits on your trades, een through you can still get gapped if you're unlucky.  However putting prices (""Open Orders"" vs ""(at)Market Orders"") can mean that you're sitting there waiting for a bounce/spike while the action is all going on without you). safer but not as much gain (maybe ;) ) that's the excitement of the market, for every option there's advantages...and risks... (eg missing out) There are also issues with stock movement, shadowing, and stop hunting, which can influence the price. But the stuff in the long paragraphs is the technical reasons."
I don't know why stocks in some industries tend to have lower prices per share than others. It doesn't really matter much. Whether a company has 1,000,0000 shares selling for $100 each, or 10,000,000 shares selling for $10 each, either way the total value is the same. Companies generally like to keep the share price relatively low so that if someone wants to buy a small amount, they can. Like if the price was $10,000 per share, than an investor with less than $10,000 to put in that one stock would be priced out of the market. If it's $10, then if someone wants $10 they can buy one share, and if someone wants $10,000 they can buy 1000 shares. As to why energy stocks are volatile, I can think of several reasons. One, in our current world, energy is highly susceptible to politics. A lot of the world's energy comes from the Middle East, which is a notoriously unstable region. Any time there's conflict there, energy supplies from the region become uncertain. Oil-producing countries may embargo countries that they don't like. A war will, at the very least, interfere with transportation and shipping, and may result in oil wells being destroyed. Etc. Two, energy is consumed when you use it, and most consumers have very limited ability to stockpile. So you're constantly buying the energy you need as you need it. So if demand goes down, it is reflected immediately. Compare this to, say, clothing. Most people expect to keep the same clothes for years, wearing them repeatedly. (Hopefully washing them now and then!) So if for some reason you decided today that you only need three red shirts instead of four, this might not have any immediate impact on your buying. It could be months before you would have bought a new red shirt anyway. There is a tendency for the market to react rather slowly to changes in demand for shirts. But with energy, if you decide you only need to burn 3 gallons of gas per week instead of 4, your consumption goes down immediately, within days. Three, really adding to number two, energy is highly perishable, especially some forms of energy. If a solar power station is capable of producing 10 megawatts but today there is only demand for 9 megawatts, you can't save the unused megawatt for some future time when demand is higher. It's gone. (You can charge a battery with it, but that's pretty limited.) You can pile up coal or store natural gas in a tank until you need it, but you can't save the output of a power plant. Note numbers two and three also apply to food, which is why food production is also very volatile. "In a rational market, the market caps (total value of all shares of the company) should be determined by the expected future profits of the company, plus the book value (that is the value of all assets that the company holds). The share price is then calculated as market caps divided by number of shares - a company worth a billion dollar could have a million shares at $1000 each or a billion shares at $1 each or anything in between.  When profits drop, every investor has to re-think what the expected future profits of the company are. If all the investors say ""I thought this company would make a billion profit in the next ten years, but based on the drop in profits I changed my mind and I think they will only make 500 million"", then the share price drops. On the other hand, if profits dropped because of some predictable event, then that drop was already priced into the share price. If the profits dropped less than expected, the share price might even go up.  You can see the opposite effect: Share price might be very high because everyone expects huge growth in profits over the next ten years. If profits grow less than expected, the share price will drop. Share price depends on predicted future profits, not on profits today." "The price of a company's stock at any given moment is established by a ratio of buyers to sellers.  When the sellers outnumber the buyers at a given price, the stock price drops until there are enough people willing to buy the stock to balance the equation again.  When there are more people wanting to purchase a stock at a given price than people willing to sell it, the stock price rises until there are enough sellers to balance things again.  So given this, it's easy to see that a very large fund (or collection of very large funds) buying or selling could drive the price of a stock in one direction or another (because the sheer number of shares they trade can tip the balance one way or another).   What's important to keep in mind though is that the ratio of buyers to sellers at any given moment is determined by ""market sentiment"" and speculation.  People selling a stock think the price is going down, and people buying it think it's going up; and these beliefs are strongly influenced by news coverage and available information relating to the company.  So in the case of your company in the example that would be expected to triple in value in the next year; if everyone agreed that this was correct then the stock would triple almost instantly.  The only reason the stock doesn't reach this value instantly is that the market is split between people thinking this is going to happen and people who think it won't.   Over time, news coverage and new information will cause one side to appear more correct than the other and the balance will shift to drive the price up or down.  All this is to say that YES, large funds and their movements CAN influence a stock's trading value; BUT their movements are based upon the same news, information, analysis and sentiment as the rest of the market.  Meaning that the price of a stock is much more closely tied to news and available information than day to day trading volumes.  In short, buying good companies at good prices is just as ""good"" as it's ever been.   Also keep in mind that the fact that YOU can buy and sell stocks without having a huge impact on price is an ADVANTAGE that you have.  By slipping in or out at the right times in major market movements you can do things that a massive investment fund simply cannot." "I can see two possibilities. Either a deal is struck that someone (the company itself, or a large owner) buys out the remaining shares. This is the scenario @mbhunter is talking about, so I won't go too deeply into it, but it simply means that you get money in your bank account for the shares in question the same as if you were to sell them for that price (in turn possibly triggering tax effects, etc.). I imagine that this is by far the most common approach. The other possibility is that the stock is simply de-listed from a public stock exchange, and not re-listed elsewhere. In this case, you will still have the stock, and it will represent the same thing (a portion of the company), but you will lose out on most of the ""market"" part of ""stock market"". That is, the shares will still represent a monetary value, you will have the same right to a portion of the company's profits as you do now, etc., but you will not have the benefit of the market setting a price per share so current valuation will be harder. Should you wish to buy or sell stock, you will have to find someone yourself who is interested in striking a deal with you at a price point that you feel comfortable with." "It's been said before, but to repeat succinctly, a company's current share price is no more or less than what ""the market"" thinks that share is worth, as measured by the price at which the shares are being bought and sold. As such, a lot of things can affect that price, some of them material, others ethereal. A common reason to own stock is to share the profits of the company; by owning 1 share out of 1 million shares outstanding, you are entitled to 1/1000000 of that company's quarterly profits (if any). These are paid out as dividends. Two key measurements are based on these dividend payments; the first is ""earnings per share"", which is the company's stated quarterly profits, divided by outstanding shares, with the second being the ""price-earnings ratio"" which is the current price of the stock divided by its EPS. Your expected ""yield"" on this stock is more or less the inverse of this number; if a company has a P/E ratio of 20, then all things being equal, if you invest $100 in this stock you can expect a return of $5, or 5% (1/20). As such, changes in the expected earnings per share can cause the share price to rise or fall to maintain a P/E ratio that the pool of buyers are willing to tolerate. News that a company might miss its profit expectations, due to a decrease in consumer demand, an increase in raw materials costs, labor, financing, or any of a multitude of things that industry analysts watch, can cause the stock price to drop sharply as people look for better investments with higher yields. However, a large P/E ratio is not necessarily a bad thing, especially for a large stable company. That stability means the company is better able to weather economic problems, and thus it is a lower risk. Now, not all companies issue dividends. Apple is probably the most well-known example. The company simply retains all its earnings to reinvest in itself. This is typically the strategy of a smaller start-up; whether they're making good money or not, they typically want to keep what they make so they can keep growing, and the shareholders are usually fine with that. Why? Well, because there's more than one way to value a company, and more than one way to look at a stock. Owning one share of a stock can be seen quite literally as owning a share of that company. The share can then be valued as a fraction of the company's total assets.  Sounds simple, but it isn't, because not every asset the company owns has a line in the financial statements. A company's brand name, for instance, has no tangible value, and yet it is probably the most valuable single thing Apple owns. Similarly, intellectual property doesn't have a ""book value"" on a company's balance sheet, but again, these are huge contributors to the success and profitability of a company like Apple; the company is viewed as a center of innovation, and if it were not doing any innovating, it would very quickly be seen as a middleman for some other company's ideas and products. A company can't sustain that position for long even if it's raking in the money in the meantime. Overall, the value of a company is generally a combination of these two things; by owning a portion of stock, you own a piece of the company's assets, and also claim a piece of their profits. A large company with a lot of material assets and very little debt can be highly valued based solely on the sum of its parts, even if profits are lagging. Conversely, a company more or less operating out of a storage unit can have a patent on the cure for cancer, and be shoveling money into their coffers with bulldozers." If you buy a stock and it goes up, you can sell it and make money. But if you buy a stock and it goes down, you can lose money. "The Auction Market is where investors such you and me, as well as Market Makers, buy and sell securities.  The Auction Markets operate with the familiar bid-ask pricing that you see on financial pages such as Google and Yahoo.  The Market Makers are institutions that are there to provide liquidity so that investors can easily buy and sell shares at a ""fair"" price. Market Makers need to have on hand a suitable supply of shares to meet investor demands.  When Market Makers feel the need to either increase or decrease their supply of a particular security quickly, they turn to the Dealer Market. In order to participate in a Dealer Market, you must be designated a Market Maker.  As noted already, Market Makers are dedicated to providing liquidity for the Auction Market in certain securities and therefore require that they have on hand a suitable supply of those securities which they support.  For example, if a Market Maker for Apple shares is low on their supply of Apple shares, then will go the Dealer Market to purchase more Apple shares.  Conversely, if they are holding what they feel are too many Apple shares, they will go to the Dealer Market to sell Apple shares.  The Dealer Market does operate on a bid-ask basis, contrary to your stated understanding. The bid-ask prices quoted on the Dealer Market are more or less identical to those on the Auction Market, except the quote sizes will be generally much larger. This is the case because otherwise, why would a Market Maker offer to sell shares to another Market Maker at a price well below what they could themselves sell them for in the Auction Market.  (And similarly with buy orders.)  If Market Makers are generally holding low quantities of a particular security, this will drive up the price in both the Dealer Market and the Auction Market. Similarly, if Market Makers are generally holding too much of a particular security, this may drive down prices on both the Auction Market and the Dealer Market." "Because more people bought it than sold it. That's really all one can say. You look for news stories related to the event, but you don't really know that's what drove people to buy or sell. We're still trying to figure out the cause of the recent flash crash, for example. For the most part, I feel journalism trying to describe why the markets moved is destined to fail.  It's very complicated. Stocks can fall on above average earnings reports, and rise on dismal annual reports. I've heard a suggestion before that people ""buy on the rumor, sell on the news"". Which is just this side of insider trading." Like others have already said, it may cause an immediate dip due to a large and sudden move in shares for that particular stock. However, if there is nothing else affecting the company's financials and investors perceive no other risks, it will probably bounce back a bit, but not back to the full value before the shares were issued. Why? Whenever a company issues more stock, the new shares dilute the value of the current shares outstanding, simply because there are now more shares of that stock trading on the market; the Earnings Per Share (EPS) Ratio will drop since the same profit and company value has to be spread across more shares. Example:  If a company is valued at $100 dollars and they have 25 shares outstanding, then the EPS ratio equates to $4 per share (100/25 = 4).  If the company then issues more shares (stock to employees who sell or keep them), let's say 25 more shares, then shares outstanding increase to 50, but the company's value still remains at $100 dollars. EPS now equates to $2 per share (100/50 = 2). Now, sometimes when shareholders (especially employees...and especially employees who just received them) suddenly all sell their shares, this causes a micro-panic in the market because investors believe the employees know something bad about the company that they don't. Other common shareholders then want to dump their holdings for fear of impending collapse in the company. This could cause the share price to dip a bit below the new diluted value, but again if no real, immediate risks exist, the price should go back up to the new, diluted value. Example 2: If EPS was at $4 before issuing more stock, and then dropped to $2 after issuing new stock, the micro-panic may cause the EPS to drop below $2 and then soon rebound back to $2 or more when investors realize no actual risk exists. After the dilution phase plays out, the EPS could actually even go above the pre-issuing value of $4 because investors may believe that since more stock was issued due to good profits, more profits may ensue. Hope that helps! "Assuming you are referring to macro corrections and crashes (as opposed to technical crashes like the ""flash crash"") -- It is certainly possible to sell stocks during a market drop -- by definition, the market is dropping not only because there are a larger number of sellers, but more importantly because there are a large number of transactions that are driving prices down. In fact, volumes are strongly correlated with volatility, so volumes are actually higher when the market is going down dramatically -- you can verify this on Yahoo or Google Finance (pick a liquid stock like SPY and look at 2008 vs recent years). That doesn't say anything about the kind of selling that occurs though. With respect to your question ""Whats the best strategy for selling stocks during a drop?"", it really depends on your objective. You can generally always sell at some price. That price will be worse during market crashes. Beyond the obvious fact that prices are declining, spreads in the market will be wider due to heightened volatility. Many people are forced to sell during crashes due to external and / or psychological pressures -- and sometimes selling is the right thing to do -- but the best strategy for long-term investors is often to just hold on." Simple, there is no magic price adjustment after sales - why do you expect the stock price to change? The listed price of a stock is what someone was willing to pay for it in the last deal that was concluded. If any amount of stock changes ownership, this might have the effect that other people are willing to buy it for a higher price - or not. It is solely in the next buyer's decision what he is willing to pay. Example: if you think Apple stocks are worth 500$ a piece, and I buy a million of them, you might still think they are worth 500$. Or you might see this as a reason that they are worth 505$ now. "There is one other factor that I haven't seen mentioned here.  It's easy to assume that if you buy a stock, then someone else (another stock owner) must have sold it to you.  This is not true however, because there are people called ""market makers"" whose basic job is to always be available to buy shares from those who wish to sell, and sell shares to those who wish to buy.  They could be selling you shares they just bought from someone else, but they also could simply be issuing shares from the company itself, that have never been bought before. This is a super oversimplified explanation, but hopefully it illustrates my point." Remember that shares represent votes at the shareholders' meeting. If share price drops too far below the value of that percentage of the company, the company gets bought out and taken over. This tends to set a minimum share price derived from the company's current value. The share price may rise above that baseline if people expect it to be worth more in the future, or drop s bit below if people expect awful news. That's why investment is called speculation. If the price asked is too high to be justified by current guesses, nobody buys. That sets the upper limit at any given time. Since some of this is guesswork, the market is not completely rational. Prices can drop after good news if they'd been inflated by the expectation of better news, for example. In general, businesses which don't crash tend to grow.  Hence the market as a whole generally trends upward if viewed on a long timescale. But there's a lot of noise on that curve; short term or single stocks are much harder to predict. It does when you argue that a single factor is causing the price chart to move a certain way.  If they start to think it's perhaps more complicated than that, then yes, it breaks down quickly, which was precisely my point. Bartering is a tricky discussion. Yes, it definitely applies when you are self-employed and do a job that you would charge anyone else for, but what if you are helping a friend in your spare time? If you receive something in exchange, the value of the item you received would be your income, but what if you don't receive anything in exchange? If the company bought a computer that they loan to you to do occasional work for them, there's no reason you couldn't take the computer home and have that company retain ownership of the property. They could still expense the depreciation of the computer without giving it to you. If it were a car though, you would have to count mileage for personal use as income. What if you exchange occasional tech support for the use of an empty desk and Internet connection? As long as they aren't renting desks for money to others, there's probably no additional marginal cost to them if they allow you to use the space, so the fair market value question breaks down.