If a stock has only buyers and no sellers how does its price go up?
"You are interpreting things wrong.  Indian Infotech and Software Ltd (BOM:509051) clearly has volume and trades.  The MoneyControl site says  Your words like ""Nobody is selling the stock"" and ""no trade going on"" are completely unfounded." You can, in theory, have the stock price go up without any trading actually occurring. It depends on how the price is quoted. The stock price is not always quoted as the last price someone paid for it. It can also be quoted as the ask price, which is the price a seller is willing to sell at, and the price youd pay if you bought at market. If I am a seller, I can raise the asking price at any time. And if there are no other sellers, or at least none that are selling lower than me, it would look like the price is going up. Because it is, it now costs more to buy it. But no trading has actually occurred. Depending on what currency the price is quoted in and is originally sold, currency fluctuation can also carry over onto the price in your currency. An example for that would be bitcoin prices which sometimes show heavy ups and downs in one currency, but seem totally stable in another and can be tracked back to changed exchange rates between currencies. Also like others have said, prices on stocks are not actually fixed. You can offer to buy or sell at any price. Only if 2 people want to buy or sell for the same price there will actually be a transaction.
You are misunderstanding what makes the price of a stock go up and down. Every time you sell a share of a stock, there is someone else that buys the stock.  So it is not accurate to say that stock prices go down when large amounts of the stock are sold, and up when large amounts of the stock are bought.  Every day, the amount of shares of a stock that are bought and sold are equal to each other, because in order to sell a share of stock, someone has to buy it. Let me try to explain what actually happens to the price of a stock when you want to sell it. Let's say that a particular stock is listed on the ticker at $100 a share currently.  All this means is that the last transaction that took place was for $100; someone sold their share to a buyer for $100. Now let's say that you have a share of the stock you'd like to sell.  You are hoping to get $100 for your share.  There are 2 other people that also have a share that they want to sell.  However, there is only 1 person that wants to buy a share of stock, and he only wants to pay $99 for a share.  If none of you wants to sell lower than $100, then no shares get sold.  But if one of you agrees to sell at $99, then the sale takes place.  The ticker value of the stock is now $99 instead of $100. Now let's say that there are 3 new people that have decided they want to buy a share of the stock.  They'd like to buy at $99, but you and the other person left with a share want to sell at $100.  Either one of the sellers will come down to $99 or one of the buyers will go up to $100.  This process will continue until everyone that wants to sell a share has sold, and everyone who wants to buy a share has bought.  In general, though, when there are more people that want to sell than buy, the price goes down, and when there are more people that want to buy than sell, the price goes up. To answer your question, if your selling of the stock had caused the price to go down, it means that you would have gotten less money for your stock than if it had not gone down.  Likewise, if your buying the stock had caused it to go up, it just means that it would have cost you more to buy the stock.  It is just as likely that you would lose money doing this, rather than gain money. "Yes, the value of a stock is completely, 100% determined by what people are willing to pay for it in conjunction with what people who have it are willing to sell it for. If something really bad happened to a company, like their only factory burned to the ground, and the traders didn't care, then I guess, in that scenario, the value of the stock would not change. But you can spin all sorts of hypotheticals of that sort. If dogs could talk, would German Shepherds speak German? Etc. Any answer is pretty meaningless because the premise is wildly unlikely. As CQM notes, ""traders"" in this context means everyone who buys or sells stock. If you buy stock, that includes you. They're not some mystical cabal somewhere. If you see a stock listed at, whatever, $50, and you are not willing to pay more than $40 for it, then you refuse to buy, and so you tend to force the price down. If you're not a billionaire, then your impact on the market is tiny, but the market is made up of millions of people each with tiny influence. Note that all this is true not just of the stock market, but of every product on the market. A product is worth whatever the owner is willing to sell it for and people are willing to pay. This is what determines the price of everything from houses to toasters. It's a little theory I've invented that I like to call, ""the law of supply and demand"". :-)" "Some stocks do fall to zero. I don't have statistics handy, but I'd guess that a majority of all the companies ever started are now bankrupt and worth zero. Even if a company does not go bankrupt, there is no guarantee that it's value will increase forever, even in a general, overall sense. You might buy a stock when it is at or near its peak, and then it loses value and never regains it. Even if a stock will go back up, you can't know for certain that it will. Suppose you bought a stock for $10 and it's now at $5. If you sell, you lose half your money. But if you hold on, it MIGHT go back up and you make a profit. Or it might continue going down and you lose even more, perhaps your entire investment. A rational person might decide to sell now and cut his losses. Of course, I'm sure many investors have had the experience of selling a stock at a loss, and then seeing the price skyrocket. But there have also been plenty of investors who decided to hold on, only to lose more money. (Just a couple of weeks ago a stock I bought for $1.50 was selling for $14. I could have sold for like 900% profit. Instead I decided to hold on and see if it went yet higher. It's now at $2.50. Fortunately I only invested something like $800. If it goes to zero it will be annoying but not ruin me.) On a bigger scale, if you invest in a variety of stocks and hold on to them for a long period of time, the chance that you will lose money is small. The stock market as a whole has consistently gone up in the long term. But the chance is not zero. And a key phrase is ""in the long term"". If you need the money today, the fact that the market will probably go back up within a few months or a year or so may not help." "Do I make money in the stock market from other people losing money? Not normally.* The stock market as a whole, on average, increases in value over time. So if we make the claim that the market is a zero-sum game, and you only make money if other people lose money, that idea is not sustainable. There aren't that many people that would keep investing in something only to continue to lose money to the ""winners."" The stock market, and the companies inside it, grow in value as the economy grows. And the economy grows as workers add value with their work.  Here's an analogy: I can buy a tree seed for very little and plant it in the ground. If I do nothing more, it probably won't grow, and it will be worth nothing. However, by taking the time to water it, fertilize it, weed it, prune it, and harvest it, I can sell the produce for much more than I purchased that seed for. No one lost money when I sell it; I increased the value by adding my effort.  If I sell that tree to a sawmill, they can cut the tree into usable lumber, and sell that lumber at a profit. They added their efforts and increased the value.  A carpenter can increase the value even further by making something useful (a door, for example). A retail store can make that door more useful by transporting it to a location with a buyer, and a builder can make it even more useful by installing it on a house.  No one lost any money in any of these transactions. They bought something valuable, and made it more valuable by adding their effort.  Companies in the stock market grow in value the same way. A company will grow in value as its employees produce things. An investor provides capital that the company uses to be able to produce things**, and as the company grows, it increases in value. As the population increases and more workers and customers are born, and as more useful things are invented, the economy will continue to grow as a whole.  * Certainly, it is possible, even common, to profit from someone else's loss.  People lose money in the stock market all the time.  But it doesn't have to be this way.  The stock market goes up, on average, over the long term, and so long term investors can continue to make money in the market even without profiting from others' failures. ** An investor that purchases a share from another investor does not directly provide capital to the company.  However, this second investor is rewarding the first investor who did provide capital to the company.  This is the reason that the first investor purchased in the first place; without the second investor, the first would have had no reason to invest and provide the capital.  Relating it to our tree analogy: Did the builder who installed the door help out the tree farmer?  After all, the tree farmer already sold the tree to the sawmill and doesn't care what happens to it after that.  However, if the builder had not needed a door, the sawmill would have had no reason to buy the tree." How can there be an outflow while prices have increased? Assuming for every seller, there is a buyer, should the amount of us securities sold match the amount purchased? What exactly defines an outflow? Is it defined based off the amount at which the stock was sold today, or the original purchase price the seller bought the stock at? Volume @ 0 doesn't mean that there are no buyers and sellers, it just means that there hasn't been any trades done yet. What you need to look for are the bids and offers (for selling and buying, respectively). For further expiration and NTM or IT options there will almost always be a bid and an offer (but it may be very wide). Now, in case where there is 0 bid (no one is willing to buy), you may still have a chance if the option has some value in it. For that - you need your broker to try to shop it to market making firms. Now, depending on who your broker is, this may or may not be possible. Alternatively, if you have DMA (direct market access) to the options exchanges, you can try to put in an offer of your own and wait for someone to execute against you, however do not expect to be traded with unless your price is out of line with the cost. However, in wide markets, you can try Lampost options (they may give you price improvement) or try to offer very close to the bid. You may save yourself a penny or two and perhaps get a rebate if you are using BATSO or NASDAQO markets (if you have DMA and pass-through exchange fees). Value is the key word here. Traders should ideally trade on the perceived future value of a company.  Changes in the perceived future value is what leads them to buy and sell shares. That said, if a company were to have some catastrophe happen (say it and all of its employees and property disappeared)  and somehow every shareholder agreed to not sell, the companies market capitalization would remain unmoved even though the value of the company is gone. So theoretically yes, but it is unlikely. For every seller, there's a buyer. Buyers may have any reason for wanting to buy (bargain shopping, foolish belief in a crazy business, etc).  The party (brokerage, market maker, individual) owning the stock at the time the company goes out of business is the loser . But in a general panic, not every company is going to go out of business. So the party owning those stocks can expect to recover some, or all, of the value at some point in the future. Brokerages all reserve the right to limit margin trading (required for short selling), and during a panic would likely not allow you to short a stock they feel is a high risk for them. Stock A last traded at $100. Stock A has 1 million shares outstanding. No seller is willing to sell Stock A for less than $110 a share. One buyer is willing to buy 1 share for $110. The order executes. The buyer pays the seller $110. Stock A's new price is $110. An $110 investment increased the market cap by $10 million. Neat trick (for all who own Stock A). "I place a trade, a limit order on a thinly traded stock. I want to buy 1000 shares at $10. The current price is $10.50. Someone places a market order for 500 shares. Another trader has a limit order for $10.10 for 400 shares. His order fills, and I get 100 at my price. I wait another day to see if I get any more shares. This is just an example of how it can work. I can place my order as ""all or none"" if I wish to avoid this." In order: A seller of the stock (duh!). You don't know who or why this stock was sold. It could be any reason, and is of no concern of yours. It doesn't matter. Investors (pension funds, hedge funds, individual investors, employees, management) sell stock for many reasons: need cash, litigation, differing objectives, sector rotation, etc. To you, this does not matter. Yes, it does affect stock market prices: If you were not willing to buy that amount of shares, and there were no other buyers at that price, the seller would likely choose to lower the price offered. By your purchase, you are supporting the price. How do you know the shares will go up after you buy? The ultimate risk in your scenario is that you buy at a peak, and then that peak is never reached again. Over time, stock markets go up [more or less because there is a net increase in the overall production of the economy as time goes on]. However, you won't experience much of that gain, because you will be selling only after tiny amounts of profit have been achieved. So your upside is low, your plan is capital-expensive [because it requires you to have significant amount of cash available to make the initial purchase], and your downside [though unlikely] has massive risk. "The company released its 2nd Quarter Revenue of $1,957,921 a couple days ago however the stock did not move up in any way. Why? If the company is making money shouldn't the stock go up. During the time between earnings announcements, analysts occasionally publish their assessment of a company, including their estimate of the company's value and future earnings. And as part of an earnings report, companies often include ""guidance"": their prediction for the upcoming quarter (this will frequently be a conservative estimate, so they're more likely to achieve it). Investors make their purchase and sale decisions based on this information. When the earnings report comes out, investors compare these actual returns to analysts' predictions and the company's guidance. If their results are in line with these predictions, the stock price is unlikely to move much, as those results are already incorporated into the stock price. If the company is doing better than predicted, it's usually a good sign, and the price often rises; conversely, if it's doing worse, the price will likely fall. But it's not as simple as this. As others have explained, for long-term investors, stock prices are based on expectations of future activity. If the results of that quarter include some one-time actions that are unlikely to repeat, investors will often discount that portion." "Stock prices are set by bidding. In principle, a seller will say, ""I want $80."" If he can't find anyone willing to buy at that price, he'll either decide not to sell after all, or he'll lower his price. Likewise, a buyer will say, ""I'll pay $70."" If he can't find anyone willing to pay that price, he'll either decide not to buy or he'll increase his price. For most stocks there are many buyers and many sellers all the time, so there's a constant interplay. The typical small investor has VERY little control of the price. You say, ""I want to buy 10 shares of XYZ Corporation and my maximum price is $20."" If the current trending price is below $20, your broker will buy it for you. If not, he won't. You normally have some time limit on the order, so if the price falls within your range within that time period, your broker will buy. That is, your choice is basically to buy or not buy, or sell or not sell, at the current price. You have little opportunity to really negotiate a better price. If you have a significant percentage of a company's total stock, different story. In real life, most stocks are being traded constantly, so buyers and sellers both have a pretty good idea of the current price. If the last sale was ten minutes ago for $20, it's unlikely anyone's going to now bid $100. They're going to bid $20.50 or $19.25 or some such. If the last sale was for $20 and your broker really came to the floor and offered to buy for $100, I suppose someone would sell to him very quickly before he realized what an outrageous price this was. I use TD Ameritrade, and on their web site, if I give a price limit on a buy that's more than a small percentage above the last sale, they reject it as an error. I forget the exact number but they won't even accept a bid of $80 if the stock is going for $40. They might accept $41 or $42, something like that." "As @ApplePie pointed out in their answer, at any given time there is a finite amount of stock available in a company. One subtlety you may be missing is that there is always a price associated with an offer to buy shares. That is, you don't put in an order simply to buy 1 share of ABC, you put in an order to buy 1 share of ABC for $10. If no one is willing to sell a share of ABC for $10, then your order will go unfilled. This happens millions of times a day as traders try to figure the cheapest price they can get for a stock. Practically speaking, there is always a price at which people are willing to sell their shares. You can put in a market order for 1 share of ABC, which says essentially ""I want one share of ABC, and I will pay whatever the market deems to be the price"". Your broker will find you 1 share, but you may be very unhappy about the price you have to pay! While it's very rare for a market to have nobody willing to sell at any price, it occasionally happens that no one is willing to buy at any price. This causes a market crash, as in the 2007-2008 financial crisis, when suddenly everyone became very suspicious of how much debt the major banks actually held, and for a few days, very few traders were willing to buy bank stocks at any price."