While stories of successes in the stock mark et are abundant in our society, the workings of the stock market are not very clear to most of the people outside this magical world of rise and fall. Most people think that the jam pack of people on the trading floors of the Dhaka stock exchange are the only people involved in the business, but in this world of electronic communication the person sitting in the next booth of the cyber café might just be a legend of the stock market legacy. The stock exchange serves to us a fantasy where there are magical chances of huge profits out of small investment like the magical lamp of Aladdin with the genie inside.

In reality the story might be much more different than what is expected. Rational calculations, careful monitoring, marginalized bidding, all serve to reach the goal profit of the traders. The name of the game is time in reality where the profit margin depends on selling and buying at the right time. Also the stock market serves as a source of capital for the companies to operate and is not only a place of personal gain or loss but an important part of the world economy as well. The size of open stock markets around the world are estimated at about $51trillion and the world derivatives market has an estimated size of $480 trillion face or nominal value, 30 times the size of U. S. economy and 12 times the size of the entire world economy. As the value of the world derivatives market is on notional value it is different from the actual value of the stocks or fixed income security or the traditional estimate of value that we have.

The stock market is either a private or public market where the shares or derivatives are traded at an agreed price. They are referred to as securities which a trader shall bid to buy or sell at an acceptable price based on the availability and demand of the particular security. The transactions take place in both floor bid or 'outcry' auctioning and network bidding over the internet. Buyers and Sellers at the start of the stock market were usually individual sellers and buyers, but now with time and institutionalization the buyers and sellers are largely institutions (e.g. pension funds, insurance companies, banks, mutual funds, etc). There are still a lot of individual buyers and sellers in market who buys and sells stocks attempting to make profit in between.

The stock market is one of the important sources of companies to raise funds and capital as the easiness of the exchange trading makes investing in stocks more attractive than in less liquid investment such as real estate. The prices of shares and other assets play a dominating part in the dynamics of the economy and serves also as an influencer or indicator of economical conditions. Rising share prices can mean more investment in business and vice versa. Exchanges also serve as the clearing house ensuring the security of both sellers and buyers enabling and ensuring fair transactions. The stock prices fluctuate widely and the future depends on bidding on the right time. The market because of being in certain level of human psychology (the buyer's or the seller's mind) is unpredictable wholly, making it a game of chance.

The investors carefully calculate the background of the shares (the company whose share it is, the price changes in the past, the addition of new assets) before investment. They carefully monitor the data in the monthly reviews to estimate the time to buy or sell. Their profit lies in these activities and in the end the rubbing of the lamp is just as important as having it.

So in the long run, the magic lamp and the genie's large role in the life of Aladdin resembles the role of investment in the stock market. The investment builds and takes at the same time making it all the more exciting and attractive, just like a game of dice. The magic is there but it also is a game of mind with its own set of patterns and calculations. Maybe when thinking about investing money, stocks are really good way of making profit out of the investment. Think about it…