Meaning of capital market
"Just to clarify, In wikipedia when it says  It is defined as a market in which money is provided for periods longer than a year They are referring to the company which is asking for money. So for example the stock market provides money to the issuing company of an IPO, indefinitely. Meaning the company that just went public is provided with money for a period longer than a year. The definition in Investopedia basically says the same thing Wikipedia does it is just phrased slightly different and leaves out the ""for periods longer than a year"".  For example Wikipedia uses the term ""business enterprises"" and ""governments"" while Investopedia uses the term private sector and public sector, in this context ""business enterprise"" is ""private sector"" and ""governments"" is ""public sector""  So in the sense of the length debt is issued yes, money market would be the opposite of a capital market but both markets still offer a place for governments and companies to raise money and both are classified as financial markets." "1) Are the definitions for capital market from the two sources the same? Yes.  They are from two different perspectives.  Investopedia is looking at it primarily from the perspective of a trader and they lead-off with the secondary market. This refers to the secondary market: A market in which individuals and institutions trade financial securities. This refers to the primary market: Organizations/institutions in the public and private sectors also often sell securities on the capital markets in order to raise funds. Also, the Investopedia definition leaves much to be desired, but it is supposed to be pithy.  So, you are comparing apples and oranges, to some extent.  One is an article, as short as it may be, this other one is an entry in a dictionary. 2) What is the opposite of capital market, according to the definition in investopedia?  It's not quite about opposites, this is not physics.  However, that is not the issue here.  The Investopedia definition simply does not mention any other possibilities.  The Wikipedia article defines the term more thoroughly.  It talks about primary/secondary markets in separate paragraph. 3) According to the Wikipedia's definition, why does stock market belong to capital market, given that stocks can be held less than one year too? If you follow the link in the Wikipedia article to money market: As money became a commodity, the money market is nowadays a component of the financial markets for assets involved in short-term borrowing, lending, buying and selling with original maturities of one year or less. The key here is original maturities of one year or less. Here's my attempt at explaining this: Financial markets are comprised of money markets and capital markets.   Money is traded as if it were a commodity on the money markets.  Hence, the short-term nature in its definition.  They are more focused on the money itself.     Capital markets are focused on the money as a means to an end. Companies seek money in these markets for longer terms in order to improve their business in some way. A business may go to the money markets to access money quickly in order to deal with a short-term cash crunch.  Meanwhile, a business may go to the capital markets to seek money in order to expand its business. Note that capital markets came first and money markets are a relatively recent development.   Also, we are typically speaking about the secondary (capital) market when we are talking about the stock or bond market.  In this market, participants are merely trading among themselves.  The company that sought money by issuing that stock/bond certificate is out of the picture at that point and has its money.   So, Facebook got its money from participants in the primary market: the underwriters.  The underwriters then turned around and sold that stock in an IPO to the secondary market.  After the IPO, their stock trades on the secondary market where you or I have access to trade it.  That money flows between traders.  Facebook got its money at the ""beginning"" of the process."
If you do not need it for a day or a week or something like that, an easy thing to do to get the beta of a security is to use wolframalpha.  Here is a sample query: BETA for AAPL Calculating beta is an important metric, but it is not a be all end all, as there are ways to hedge the beta of your portfolio. So relying on beta is only useful if it is done in conjunction with something else. A high beta security just means that overall the security acts as the market does with some multiplier effect. For a secure portfolio you want beta as close to zero as possible for capital preservation while trying to find ways to exploit alpha. "Lots of questions: In general, no. Market Capitalization and Equity represent 2 different things.  Equity first, the equity of a firm is the value of the assets (what it owns) less its liabilities (what it owes) and consists (broadly) of two components - share capital (what the firm gets when it sells to investors as part of an IPO or subsequent share issue) and retained earnings (what the firm has as a result of making profits and not paying them out as dividends). This is the theoretical liquidation value of the firm - what it is worth if it stops trading, sells all its assets and pays all its debts. Market Capitalization is the current value of the future cash flow of the firm as perceived by the market - the value today of all the dividends that the firm will pay in the future for as long as it exists. This is the theoretical going concern value of the firm - what it is worth as a functioning business. In general, Market Capitalization is bigger than Equity - if it isn't the firm is worth more as scrap than as an operating business. Um ... no. If you don't have any shares then you are by definition not an owner. Having shares is what makes you an owner. What I think you mean is, is it possible for the owner(s) of a private company to sell all of its shares when it goes public? The answer is yes. It is uncommon for a start-up owner to do this but it is standard practice for ""corporate raiders"" who buy failing companies, take them private, restructure them and then take them public again - they have done their job and they are not interested in maintaining an ownership stake. Nope. See above and below. Not at all, equity is an accounting construct and market capitalization is about market sentiment. Consider the following hypothetical firm: It has $1m in equity, it makes $4m in profit and will do for the foreseeable future, it pays all of that $4m out as dividends - if we work on a simple ROI of 10% then this firm is worth $40m dollars - way more than its equity." All that is an issue with non competitive market.  My premise was that in capitalism, not in crony capitalism nor in heavily regulated so that it is non competitive or high in market barrier.   Way to solve non competitive market due to crony capitalism or too heavily regulated market usually is not more regulation.  That makes it worse. Role of regulation is to factor in extranality, promote transparency and such.  Not inflate wages of people who don't deserve it Price, whether related to a stock or ETF, has little to do with anything.  The fund or company has a total value and the value is distributed among the number of units or shares.   Vanguard's S&P ETF has a unit price of $196 and Schwab's S&P mutual fund has a unit price of $35, it's essentially just a matter of the fund's total assets divided by number of units outstanding. Vanguard's VOO has assets of about $250 billion and Schwab's SWPPX has assets of about $25 billion. Additionally, Apple has a share price of $100, Google has a share price of $800, that doesn't mean Google is more valuable than Apple.  Apple's market capitalization is about $630 billion while Google's is about $560 billion.  Or on the extreme a single share of Berkshire's Class A stock is $216,000, and Berkshire's market cap is just $360 billion.   It's all just a matter of value divided by shares/units. Efficient Frontier has an article from years ago about the small-cap and value premiums out there that would be worth noting here using the Fama and French data. Eugene Fama and Kenneth French (F/F) have shown that one can explain   almost all of the returns of equity portfolios based on only three   factors: market exposure, market capitalization (size), and   price-to-book (value). Wikipedia link to the factor model which was the result of the F/F research. Investopedia defines it in the following way: It's essentially a market order that doesn't get entered until the last minute (or thereabouts) of trading. With this type of order you are not necessarily guaranteed the closing price but usually something very similar, depending on the liquidity in the market and bid-ask for the security in question. Traders who believe that a security or market will move more heavily during the last few minutes of trading will often place such an order in the hopes of having their order filled at a more desirable price. FTSE is an index catering to the London stock exchange. It is a  Capitalization-Weighted Index  of 100 companies listed on the London Stock Exchange with the highest market capitalization . When somebody says FTSE closed at 6440, it basically means at the end of the day, the index calculated using the day end market capitalization of the companies, included in the index, is 6440. Yes, it's a term in economics. It is the economy that affects goods and services, and so the vast majority of the economy.   It contrasts with the paper economy, which is what goes on in the financial sector and speaks more about the virtual value in bonds, financial instruments, and shares.