The stock market is not one building or one company. It is a system that lets a company sell small pieces of itself, and lets people later sell those pieces to each other. Two parts matter most.
The primary market
This is where shares are sold for the first time. A made-up company, Sunrise Biscuits Ltd, needs money for a new factory. It offers shares to the public in an IPO (initial public offering). The money from that sale goes to the company. After the shares are allotted, they are listed on an exchange.
The secondary market
After listing, people buy and sell the shares among themselves. Sunrise Biscuits gets no money from these trades; one investor is simply selling to another. This is what most people mean by "the stock market". In India it runs on two exchanges, the NSE and BSE.
Who does what
- Exchange: the marketplace. It matches buy orders with sell orders at an agreed price.
- Broker: the licensed middleman through whom you place orders, usually in an app.
- Clearing corporation: stands between both sides so that the shares and the money really change hands.
- Depository (NSDL or CDSL): keeps the electronic record of who owns which shares, in your demat account.
- SEBI: the regulator that makes the rules and watches the market.
A trade, step by step
You place an order in your broker's app: say, 10 shares of Sunrise Biscuits at the market price. The broker sends it to the exchange. If someone is selling at that price, the trade happens within moments. The shares reach your demat account and the money moves, usually by the next working day (this is called T+1 settlement).
Market hours and limits
The main trading session on the NSE and BSE runs from 9:15 am to 3:30 pm on weekdays, except market holidays. To stop wild swings, exchanges can set price bands or circuit limits that pause trading in a share or index when it moves too far, too fast.
Why prices move
A price is the last price a buyer and seller agreed on. New information, a change in mood or a big order can shift it. Nobody "sets" the price, and nobody can promise where it goes next.