What is the stock exchange?

The stock exchange is a place where stocks, bonds, or other securities are bought and sold. 
A centralized location was needed for people to go to to do this, because mass communication was practically non-existent at the time were created. Buyers and sellers needed to be near one another to make transactions. Stocks and bonds have values that are fixed at the beginning of each trading day and they rise and fall depending on the economy in general or the company in particular. People buy the stock if they think the price will rise or if it gives good dividends and sell if they think the price will fall or gives low dividends. Only a small amount of people are allowed in the exchange, so most people buying or selling securities have to hire one of those people to do the buying or selling for them. There are several different exchanges throughout the world, not just the New York Stock Exchange, which is just the most well-known. 
Stocks are bought and sold at the exchange through brokers who work for companies that are allowed to be at the exchange. It is not a supermarket of stocks open to the public. A person looking to buy or sell stocks contacts a broker working for one of the companies that is allowed in the exchange and places an order to buy or sell a particular stock or bond.That broker contacts his company's employee at the exchange to tell that employee to buy/sell a particular stock at a particular price. The employee finds someone at the exchange who wants to sell/buy that same stock for that same price and they make a deal. Prices of stocks are posted all day long and the prices change during the day. The agreed upon price for any deal may equal the listed value of be some other price they agree upon. 


Stock market is the place where stocks are traded. You would need a stockbroker who would have facility to access the market and execute your trades. 


When both the buyers and sellers in stock markets are institutions, rather than individuals, the stock market principle is more institutionalized. The emergence of this institutional investor concept has brought some improvements to stock market operations around the world. 

Stock markets can exist in both real and virtual arenas. Stock exchanges with physical locations carry out stock trading on trading floor. This method of conducting trading, where the traders enter verbal bids, is called open outcry. 

Most of the stocks are traded on NASDAQ, AMEX or OTC. There are also stock exchanges for penny stocks which are traded on NASDAQ Small Cap Market or OTC-BB.