The amount of stock owned is quantified as shares. The amount of shares one holds also determines their stake in a company (in other words, how much of the company they own). For example, if a company has issued 1000 shares and an individual purchases 200 shares, he or she has a 20% stake in the company (owns 20%). A company can be either privately or publicly held (with great ramifications on how its management is regulated). The essential difference is that spublicly held company’s stocks are available for trade on the open market, whereas those of a privately held one are not. A private company can “go public” by conducting an Initial Public Offering, where shares are created and sold to the public. IPOs became a particularly prominent phenomenon during the Dot-Com bubble of 1995-2001, as covered later. The final fundamental stock behavior is a “split,” where a company decides to let each stock entitle the bearer to more shares, with a corresponding decline of the value of each.