Translation under review. The illustrations are still in Portuguese.
"You're not buying a number on a screen. You're buying a brick of that factory."
You stopped in the middle of this chapter.
A thing of value. An asset is anything of value that you can own, buy or sell. A piece of land. A head of cattle. A sack of coffee. A tiny piece of a company.
The brick (it's just a comparison). Nobody gets a real brick, or a piece of paper to keep at home. Think of the company as a factory made of millions of bricks: each is one of those little bricks. Whoever buys a share becomes a micro-partner, the owner of a tiny piece of the company, and that gets recorded in their name.
Why does anyone buy? For two reasons. So the company makes a profit and part of that profit comes to you. Or because someone will want to pay more for that brick later.
The nickname. On the , each asset has a short nickname, the . It's four letters and a number, like ABCD3. It's just the name that shows up in the corner of the screen.
The brick can crack. Companies go broke. Even a giant company can lose almost all its value. Owning a brick guarantees nothing: if the factory does badly, your brick is worth less.
Words in this chapter
Share (stock)
A small piece of a real company. If the company grows, the piece tends to be worth more.
Stock exchange
The place where buy and sell orders meet. In Brazil, it's B3.
Ticker
The short nickname of each asset on the stock exchange: four letters and a number, like ABCD3. It's just the name that shows up in the corner of the screen.
