In financial markets, stock is the capital raised by a corporation through the issuance and distribution of shares.
A person or organisation which holds at least a partial share of stocks is called a shareholder. The aggregate value of a corporation's issued shares is its market capitalization.
In the United Kingdom and Australia, the term share is used the same way, but stocks there refer to either a completely different financial instrument, the bond, or more widely to all kinds of marketable securities.
