What are equities?

Equities, also called stocks and shares, are a percentage of a company whose ownership has been divided up and shared. Publicly traded companies list their shares on an exchange for anyone to buy.

Companies list their shares on an exchange to raise additional capital to fund their business operations.

Many of the world’s major corporations are publicly listed, which allows investors to buy shares across a diverse range of industries such as technology, financial, retail, mining, pharmaceutical, etc. so that they can diversify their investment portfolio.
 

Why trade equities?

Investors buy shares to profit from a company’s growth. When an investor buys a share in a company he or she expects it to increase in value so that he/she can sell it at a higher price to make a profit. However company shares don’t always go up in value and trading in today’s stock market happens extremely fast.