What is the stock exchange, how does it work, why does it affect economy?

I'm almost 40 years old, and somehow I have managed to elude my understanding of the stock market. It all seems so superficious to me. I imagine I need to wiki it. I have been about dow jones being down, I don't understand. I turn the page in the paper and see several pages of stock numbers..I don't understand them. I don't know what to make of scrolling blue information on television. I have somehow managed to live 38 years of my life without needing to understand.|||When a company wants to grow, they sell a piece of the company to investors. They do this by selling shares of the company on the stock market.|||the stock market is a market where corporation raise equity as in capital instead of going to the bank where they need a collateral and have to pay the money back with interest; in the stock market this cancels out and the company pays dividend if there is any profit with no obligation.





it affects the economy coz its the blood stream of investments in the companies that make up the economy if the stock market was not there the economy would be inefficient;|||Stock exchange is a secondary market where holders of stocks come together to trade them. Companies that initially have not offered a Initial Public offering (IPO) would not find their stocks traded in the stock exchange.





But once they have done a IPO, subsequently, they can then go into stock exchange to raise more capital by either offering rights or actual stocks.





Hope the information helps!