What Moves Stock Prices?

1. It Starts with Supply and Demand

At its core, a stock's price is set by one thing: the balance between buyers and sellers. When more people want to buy than sell, the price rises. When sellers outnumber buyers, it falls.

Every other factor — earnings, news, interest rates — matters only because it changes how many people want to buy or sell. Understanding the drivers behind that balance is the key to understanding price moves.

2. Earnings and Fundamentals

Over the long run, prices follow profits. A company that grows its earnings tends to see its stock rise; one whose profits shrink tends to fall.

This is why quarterly earnings reports are such big events. They update the market's view of a company's future profitability, shifting demand up or down.

3. Interest Rates and the Economy

Broad economic forces move all stocks at once. Chief among them are interest rates: when rates rise, future profits are worth less today and safer investments become more attractive, pressuring stocks.

4. News and Expectations

Markets are forward-looking. Prices reflect not just what's happening now, but what investors expect to happen. That's why a stock can fall on good news that wasn't quite good enough — the expectation was already "priced in."

New information — product launches, regulation, economic data, geopolitics — constantly shifts those expectations, and prices adjust in real time.

5. Sentiment and Psychology

In the short term, emotion rules. Fear and greed can push prices far from what fundamentals justify, creating bubbles and crashes.

6. Watching the Drivers on WIT

WIT brings these forces together in one place:

1. Follow market news to see the catalysts moving stocks today.
2. Track index and sector moves on the dashboard to gauge broad sentiment.
3. Check the Fear & Greed Index to read the market's emotional temperature.