The stock market is where shares of companies are sold and also bought at different amounts

depending on the company. The stock market is kind of like a smart type of gambling because
you guy buy a share at 15 dollars and over time it can grow to 150 dollars. But the downside is it
can also crash depending on how the company does and you can lose money. There’s two
ways you can buy stocks. You can go to the New York Stock Exchange where everything is
sellers looking for buyers in person. There’s also a NASDAQ which is an electronic stock
exchange where you can buy shares online using apps like Robinhood, Webull, etc. You can
buy Mutual Funds which are a group of stocks you buy in a package and they’re great because
you usually get a high return on your investment. There’s also Index funds which a
measurement of the stock market. For example, the Dow Jones is an index and it is made up of
30 companies.

Video: Bernie Madoff was one of the best traders in Wall Street, to get to him you had to know
him personally or have a connection. He had about 35k in funds when he first started which was
about 400k in today’s amount. In the early 90’s he was the chairman of Nasdaq. An investigator
looked at his records and saw that his returns were too consistent. He used something called a
Ponzi scheme, people would give Madoff money to invest and Madoff gives them a healthy
return, and this just cycles and he makes money. He didn’t make a single trade since 1993. He
was in so much danger he bought a gun and regularly checked his car for bombs. In December
2008 the stock market crashed and people started asking for their money back but he couldn’t
pay it back. He decided to turn himself in after that and all his money was gone. He then got life
in prison.