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 s publicly 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.