Stocktaking

Capital assets

rawle-lewisIn less than one week, trading in the Guyana Stock Market will enter the final month of the year.  It is a market in which there is some amount of competition for the resources of the investors.  The prices at which the stocks sell tend to leave many out of the market.  The rivalry in the market results in changes in ownership of the stocks.  Too few seem to know much about the market or appear interested in what happens there.

As with any market, prices tend to rise and fall on the behaviour of investors.  The stocks that are sold on the local exchange are capital assets so their value is also determined by the time value of the initial amount spent to purchase the stocks and the dividends that were expected to be received.  These two latter factors are the drivers of demand and supply of the stocks.  While the two variables are important determinants of the price of the stocks, it is the change in the initial investment that is more obvious in the movement in the market value of the stocks.

This change is often connected to perceptions about future economic conditions and the value it produces is referred to as the market capitalization of