When you hear about the stock market in the news or from friends, it can sound a bit intimidating. But the stock market is really a bunch of people and organizations working together to match buyers and sellers at fair prices.

Investors hand over money to companies in exchange for shares, which represent fractional ownership of the company. Over time, the value of those shares rises and falls as the fortunes of the company improve or decline. The value of those stocks, in turn, impacts the overall performance of the stock market. You may have heard of the Dow Jones Industrial Average, the S&P 500 or the Nasdaq composite index. These are the major stock indexes that you see referenced in daily news reports about how the market has performed.

The stock market connects investors from around the world who are looking to buy or sell these securities. This takes place in exchanges like the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX), NYSE and NASDAQ. Each of these exchanges is ranked by the number of stock trades that occur there each day.

Each exchange has its own rules for determining how the price of a share will be negotiated when trading occurs. Typically, trades are executed at the ask if buying or the bid if selling. You can try to control the price at which you buy or sell by using a limit order or another more advanced order type. Most individuals participate in the stock market to build wealth steadily over time by investing in stocks, mutual funds and ETFs. They make these investments after doing research and getting recommendations from financial advisors.