The stock market is made up of the Great Companies of the World, a lot of which are household names.

These companies sell real things to real people constantly, all day, every day, everywhere in the world and I bet you connect with, and buy from, these companies more often than you realise.

And if you buy from them, you can benefit by owning part of them.

Watch this short video where I explain some of the stock market companies I have connected with in the last 24 hours.

For a transcript of this video, keep reading:

 

Hello everyone. In this video, I’m going to talk to you about the stock market and where it is because at times it can feel very mythical, intangible, you just can’t touch it. But it doesn’t just exist are in the City of London on Wall Street. I think these days the stock market is pretty much everywhere but let me show you how.

This is a graphic of the largest 50 listed companies in the world. A lot of them you will know, a lot of them are household names Apple, Microsoft, Google, Toyota and it’s not just the names of the companies, it’s the brands that a lot of them own as well. So for example, Coca Cola owns Costa Coffee and Innocent Smoothies, Procter and Gamble owns Gillette. So these are the 50 greatest companies in the world and you can and should own a small sliver all of them because one person’s spending is another person’s income. And you should be able to own these companies and benefit from all of the income that these companies generate from everyone else spending money with them.

Silently I think from the moment you wake up, you’re interacting with a lot of these companies on a very frequent basis. Now, some of the times when you’re not interacting, is let me give you an example of my own day. Because some of the companies that are not listed so some of them you don’t know straightaway, BBC, NHS, Birmingham City Council, the local butchers… last time I asked them they’re not listed on the stock market. Amey fill potholes and dig up roads and cause all the roadworks if you get stuck in their owned by an American private equity company, Edgbaston Golf Club, Mars is one of the largest privately owned companies in the world. And for the non-cyclists among us Specialised make bikes. But here’s the last 24 hours of what I have done and who I have interacted with.

I’ve got an alarm clock that I bought on Amazon.

I go downstairs and have porridge and my breakfast. The porridge oats and the milk come from Tesco, and the blackberries I got from free picking them down the road.

Shimano, you may never heard of those Japanese engineering company. They make a lot of the components that are on my bike or cycle to the office this morning. I have Continental tires on my bike. I bought them from Halfords in Selly Oak and I wore a Nike high vis jacket to cycle up here this morning. I was wearing Adidas shoes and you can buy shares in all of these companies.

I probably paid for all of those things on a Visa credit card. So just thinking the amount of transactions going on throughout the world, Visa were on that graphic earlier on and MasterCard, Visa or MasterCard will be taking a sliver of a charge every single transaction that’s going on around the world.

Apple… I am surrounded here by Apple technology.

I have a Sharp printer and scanner in the corner of the office. We had some post this morning was called Royal Mail, somehow they renamed themselves International Distribution Services PLC. Not a very snappy name, but you can buy shares in them all the same.

I’m using the broadband in the office that’s provided by EE which is part of British Telecom. I have a Villeroy and Bosch mug that I’m having a drink out of, the water into which came from Severn Trent and the kettle I boiled it in is an Australian engineering company called Breville. The shoes I’m wearing are from Next and this shirt is from Marks & Spencers.

It just goes on and on. I practiced a little bit of golf at lunchtime you may never have heard of Acushnet Holdings Corporation, they’re a big American company listed on the New York Stock Exchange. They own Titleist and Footjoy amongst other things. Some of the clubs I was using are Taylor Made who are owned by Adidas who are listed on the German Stock Exchange. I was waiting an Under Armour t shirt and one of the clubs I was using I think I bought on eBay several years ago.

I will go home later my wife’s car is parked on the drive, she drives a Kia which is part of Hyundai, which are listed on the South Korean stock market. It’s an electric car and we have a home charger provided by Pod Point that whose shares by the look at that look a bit of a disaster but the car is brilliant.

When I’m not cycling I’ve got an Audi and I can buy shares in VW if I really wanted to. If I’m going to put some fuel into that I’m putting some money into the pockets of that big oil companies around the world.

For our evening meal last night, chicken and mushroom pie, the pastry and the ice cream we had afterwards are both one of the brands are owned by General Mills, which is a big American company.

I watch television or Panasonic television. I was watching the Arnold Schwarzenegger documentary last night on Netflix and all that at home is provided by Virgin Media… it’s got nothing to do with Richard Branson anymore that’s owned by Liberty Global who are also on the New York Stock Exchange. So it just goes on and on.

And again, come back to the graphic here. You’re silently interacting with the stock market. I bet most of you won’t go half an hour without touching not necessarily one of these companies but somehow, somewhere along the lines of the stock market.

I think it’s everywhere. And you can benefit from that by owning a small chunk of these companies and keep on owning them.

We live in a capitalist world I can’t imagine that’s going to change anytime soon.