Share
Also called: equity share, equity shares, stock
A slice of ownership in a company. Own one and you own a small part of the business, its profits and its risks.
A company divides itself into many equal pieces. Each piece is a share, and whoever holds it owns that fraction of the business. In India people use share, stock and equity for the same thing.
A share gives you four things: a claim on the profits the company chooses to pay out, a vote at shareholder meetings, a claim on whatever is left if the company is wound up (after lenders and staff are paid), and the right to sell it to someone else. It does not let you run the business, and you cannot ask the company for your money back.
Example
A tiffin company is split into 1,00,000 shares. You buy 1,000 of them, so you own one percent. If the company pays out 3 lakh rupees of profit to its owners, your part is 3,000 rupees.
Watch out
With a share, the most you can lose is what you paid for it. If the company fails, nobody can come after your other savings for its debts. That limit does not hold for futures, which the Advanced level covers.
Learn it properly in
Chapter 1.1: What a share actually is, and what you own when you buy one