system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5, What makes stocks rise/fall?

I've been granted stocks by a company I work for, and I really want to know how they work! I understand it's net worth, but there are some things that happen that affect the stock market that seem totally unrelated to me. 

Specific stock I'm interested in happens to be a video game company, what would affect that as well?
gpt
Stock moves for a lot reasons. Taking some common examples from a gaming company:


* Company specific news - say your example gaming company announce they are developing a new game. That information could affect the price positively or negatively depending on whether people think it is good news or bad. If enough decided it will add value to the shares and try purchase them then the price is driven up, if enough think it will be bad for shares and sell the price will drop. What can seem strange to some people is that stocks can drop even when companies announce large profits.. This is because a lot of assumptions are made by analysts and investors and if what really happens is below what they anticipated it can affect the share price.


* Sector specific news - say Sony announce they have sold 10m more PS4s than people expected. Your gaming company might get a 'bounce' because the market thinks the general gaming market is better than people thought and so your company might be undervalued (given it now has access to 10m customers previously not anticipated)


* General Market news - the wider air of confidence or concern in the general stock-market tends to spread around and if the general markets are down it can drag down good stocks too as people look to other investment mechanisms to try get a return on their money (thereby suppressing demand for the stock)


* Political / economic activity - anything major going on in national or international politics can have a big impact. Maybe it's specific activity about the sector (e.g. a party wanting tighter rules on what games can be sold in a country) as can wider political activity


* Major events - things like war, terrorism etc. often have an impact on the markets as markets change and people move investments to 'safe havens' (e.g. gold) during times of uncertainty.


Basically publicly traded stocks can be affected by pretty much anything, because they can be bought and sold by pretty much anybody.