Module 7: Stocks and ETFs
7 lessons, in reading order.
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How a Stock Trades: Exchanges, Market Makers and Auctions
How a US stock order reaches a wholesaler, exchange or ATS, what the NBBO protects, and how the opening and closing auctions set the official daily prices.
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Premarket and After-Hours Trading: Extended Hours Explained
Premarket and after-hours stock trading explained: session times in Eastern Time, thinner volume, wider spreads, limit-order rules and sudden price jumps.
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Short Selling Explained: Borrowing, Fees and Short Squeezes
How short selling works step by step: locating and borrowing shares, borrow fees, margin, dividends owed, short interest, squeezes and uncapped losses.
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Stock Splits, Dividends and Corporate Actions Explained
How stock splits, reverse splits, dividends, ex-dividend dates, buybacks and spin-offs change shares and prices, and why charts adjust past prices.
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How ETFs Work: Creation, Redemption, NAV and Costs
How ETFs work: what they hold, how authorized participants create and redeem shares to keep price near NAV, and what expense ratios and spreads cost.
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Leveraged and Inverse ETFs: Daily Reset and Volatility Decay
Why leveraged and inverse ETFs target one day only, how the daily reset compounds, and a worked example of volatility decay in a choppy, sideways market.
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Sectors, Indexes and Market Breadth: Reading the Whole Market
How market-value, price and equal weighting change an index, what sectors are, and how breadth measures like the advance-decline line show concentration.