1What is a stock?

A stock is a tiny piece of ownership in a real company. When you buy one share, you literally own a small slice of it — you become a part-owner, not just a customer.

Think about the brands you already use: the phone in your hand, the shoes on your feet, the app you opened this morning. A lot of those are publicly traded, which means anyone — including you — can own a piece.

Two ways a stock can make you money:

• Price appreciation — the share becomes worth more than you paid. Buy a slice at $50, it grows to $80, that's $30 of gain.
• Dividends — some companies pay owners a small share of profits just for holding the stock.

2What is a brokerage?

You can't just walk up to a company and hand them $50 for a share. You need a middleman that connects you to the stock market — that's a brokerage (also called a broker).

When you open a brokerage account, think of it like a bank account with a superpower: money you put in can be turned into shares of companies. Popular ones: Fidelity, Charles Schwab, Robinhood, SoFi, Public, Webull.

Most good brokerages today charge $0 commission — no fee every time you buy or sell a U.S. stock. That wasn't true 10 years ago; this is a great time to be starting.

3Opening an account (the teen rule)

Important if you're under 18: in the U.S. you usually can't open a regular brokerage account by yourself until you're 18. That's the law, not the app being difficult. You have two normal paths:

• A teen account — some brokerages (like the Fidelity Youth Account) let a teen aged 13–17 own and control the account, with a parent connected.
• A custodial account (UGMA/UTMA) — a parent holds the account for you until you're an adult, then it becomes fully yours. Apps like Greenlight and Acorns Early work this way.

To open one you'll generally need a parent/guardian involved, basic personal info, a linked bank account, and a few minutes. No test to pass, and usually no minimum amount.

4How you actually buy a share

Once your account has money in it, buying is a few taps:

• Search the company by its ticker symbol — Apple is AAPL, Nike is NKE.
• Choose how much — a number of shares or a dollar amount.
• Pick a market order ("buy it now at the current price"). There's a fancier limit order too, but you don't need it yet.
• Review and confirm — you're now an owner.

5What if one share costs more than you have?

Some great companies cost a lot per share — $200, $500, even more. If you've got $25, are you locked out? Not anymore. The fix is a fractional share (also "partial share" or "stock slice").

It lets you buy a piece of a share using a dollar amount — that's dollar-based investing. Instead of "buy 1 share," you say "buy $10 worth," and you get whatever fraction that equals.