Financial markets are like big marketplaces where people trade stocks, bonds, foreign currencies, etc. These markets, including the stock market and others, play an important role in making capitalist economies work smoothly.
Key Takeaways
Financial markets are like big markets where people trade stocks, bonds, and money. These markets can be formal ones where things are listed on official exchanges or less formal and happen directly between people.
These markets are super important for making a capitalist society run smoothly. They deal with all sorts of financial stuff. But when these markets mess up, it can lead to problems like a recession and people losing their jobs.
Financial markets have a crucial role in keeping capitalist economies running smoothly. They help distribute resources and allow people to trade their financial assets. These markets create different financial products that let those with extra money (investors or lenders) earn a return on their funds and provide those who need money (borrowers) with the required cash.
The stock market is slightly a piece of the puzzle. Financial markets deal with various financial instruments, including stocks, bonds, currencies, and contracts. To ensure fair and efficient prices, these markets rely on having good information available to everyone. Sometimes, the prices of these assets don't match what they're worth due to taxes and other big economic factors.
Some financial markets are small and don't see much action, while others, like the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), trade trillions of dollars value of financial stuff every day. The stock market, in particular, lets investors buy and sell parts of public companies.
New stocks get sold in the primary market, usually through an "initial public offering" or IPO. After that, people trade those stocks in the secondary market, buying and selling stocks they already own.
Stock markets are the most common type of financial markets. These are places where companies put their shares up for sale, and traders and investors can buy and sell them. Companies use stock markets to collect money when offering their shares in an "initial public offering" or IPO. After that, the shares keep changing hands between buyers and sellers in the "secondary market."
You can trade stocks on official exchanges like the BSE or National Stock Exchange or do it more informally, directly between people. Most of the time, stock trading happens on these regulated exchanges, and they are super important because they show how the economy is doing and give investors, even those saving for retirement, a chance to make money through capital gains and dividends.
In stock markets, you'll find people participating, from regular folks and big investors to market experts who ensure enough trading and offer buying and selling opportunities. Some brokers help set up trades between buyers and sellers but don't own the stocks.
An over-the-counter (OTC) market is a kind of market that doesn't have a physical place – it's all done electronically. Here, people trade securities directly with each other without using a broker in the middle. OTC markets sometimes handle trading certain stocks, usually smaller or riskier ones that don't meet the criteria to be listed on official exchanges. But most of the time, stock trading happens on these official exchanges.
However, when it comes to certain financial contracts known as derivatives, these are exclusively traded on OTC markets. These markets are an important part of the overall financial system. Generally, OTC markets and the transactions that happen there are not as closely regulated, they're not as easy to trade in, and they're not as transparent as the more traditional exchanges.
A bond is like a special investment where an investor lends money for a set time, and they get paid interest at a pre-arranged rate. Think of it as a deal between the person lending the money and the one borrowing it, with all the information about the loan and how it gets paid back.
Companies and governments use bonds to get money for projects and daily expenses. For instance, the United States Treasury sells bonds, such as notes and bills, in what's known as the bond market. This market also goes by other names like the debt, credit, or fixed-income markets.
Money markets are where you trade financial products that are easily turned into cash quickly, usually within a year or less. These investments are known for being safe, but they don't offer very high returns in terms of interest.
Money markets involve large trades between institutions and professional traders in the big leagues. On a smaller scale, everyday people can get involved, too.
They can invest in money market mutual funds or open money market accounts through their banks. You can also put your money into municipal notes, short-term certificates of deposit (CDs), or U.S. Treasury bills, among other choices.
A derivative is an agreement between two or more parties whose deal is based on a decided-upon underlying financial asset (like a security) or set of assets (like an index). Derivatives are secondary securities whose deal solely emanates from the value of the primary security they are related to. In and of itself, a derivative is useless.
Instead of trading stocks directly, a derivatives market trades in futures and options agreements and other advanced economic products that derive their worth from underlying instruments such as currencies, commodities, bonds, interest rates, market indexes, and stocks.
Futures markets are where futures agreements are listed and switched. Unlike forwards, which trade OTC, futures markets operate standardized contract specifications, are well-regulated, and operate clearinghouses to settle and confirm trades.
Like the Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE), options markets similarly list and regulate options contracts. Futures and options exchanges may list agreements on different asset classes, like equities, fixed-income securities, commodities, etc.
The forex market, quick for the foreign exchange market, is where people can trade, buy, sell, protect themselves from risks, and even bet on exchange rates between different currencies. It's the most fluid market globally, the easiest place to turn assets into cash. Every day, the currency market handles more than $7.5 trillion in transactions, which is even more than what the futures and stock markets combined can manage.
Like the OTC markets, the forex market doesn't have a central location – it's all online. It's a vast network of computers and brokers from all around the world. In this market, you'll find big banks, companies, central banks, investment firms, hedge funds, regular forex brokers, and individual investors.
Commodities markets are like meeting places where people who make things and use them get together to trade actual goods.
These goods can be things like farm products (like corn, livestock, and soybeans), energy stuff (such as oil, gas, and carbon credits), valuable metals (like gold, silver, and platinum), or softer products (such as cotton, coffee, and sugar). These physical items are swapped for money in these markets, which we call "spot commodity markets."
Over the past few years, cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum have become increasingly popular. These digital assets operate without a central authority and are built on blockchain technology.
Today, thousands of cryptocurrency tokens trade worldwide through independent online crypto exchanges. These exchanges serve as digital wallets where traders exchange one cryptocurrency for another or convert it into traditional currencies like dollars or euros.
It's important to be cautious, as most cryptocurrency exchanges are centralized, so that they can be vulnerable to hacks and fraud. However, there are decentralized exchanges available that operate without any central authority.
These platforms enable direct peer-to-peer trading of digital currencies, eliminating the need for an intermediary to facilitate transactions. Furthermore, you can also trade futures and options for major cryptocurrencies, adding to the diversity of options within the cryptocurrency market.
The previous sections highlight the expansive nature of "financial markets." To illustrate this with two specific examples, let's look at how stock markets play a crucial role in a company's Initial Public Offering (IPO) and how the OTC derivatives market contributed to the financial crisis of 2008-09.
When a company starts up, it often needs money from investors to help it grow. As it expands, it might require much more cash than it can generate from its regular business or a standard bank loan. Companies can sell shares to the public via an "initial public offering" or IPO to get this kind of significant funding.
This transforms the company from being privately owned by just a few shareholders to a publicly traded company with its shares owned by many members of the general public.
An IPO also gives early investors in the company a chance to sell some of their shares, often making substantial profits. Initially, the IPO price is typically set by underwriters during pre-marketing.
Once the company's claims are listed on a stock exchange and people start trading them, the share prices will go up and down as investors and traders keep evaluating their worth and how many people want to buy or sell them at any given moment.
The 2008-09 financial crisis had multiple causes, but one widely recognized factor was the market for mortgage-backed securities (MBS). These are a type of financial contract where the cash flows from individual mortgages are bundled, divided into portions, and sold to investors.
The Problem resulted from a series of events, each with its trigger, ultimately leading to a near-collapse of the banking system. Some argue that the roots of this crisis can be traced back to the 1970s when the Community Development Act encouraged banks to relax their credit standards for lower-income borrowers, creating a market for subprime mortgages.
The amount of subprime mortgage debt, backed by Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, grew into the early 2000s. During this time, the Federal Reserve Board significantly lowered interest rates to prevent a recession.
The combination of lenient credit requirements and cheap money fueled a housing boom, which led to speculation, increased housing prices, and created a real estate bubble. Meanwhile, investment banks, seeking profits after the dotcom crash and the 2001 recession, developed a type of MBS called collateralized debt obligations (CDOs) using the mortgages purchased on the secondary market.
As subprime mortgages were bundled with prime mortgages, investors couldn't accurately gauge the risks associated with these products. When the CDO market heated up, the housing bubble that had been forming for years finally burst. Falling housing prices led to defaults by subprime borrowers, whose loan values exceeded the worth of their homes, further accelerating the decline in property prices.
When investors realized that MBS and CDOs were virtually worthless due to the bad debt they contained, they tried to get rid of these obligations.
However, there were no takers in the market for CDOs. The resulting series of subprime lender failures led to a contagion of liquidity problems that reached the upper levels of the banking system. Major investment banks like Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns collapsed due to their exposure to subprime debt, and over the following five years, more than 450 banks failed.
Some major banks were on the brink of collapse and were saved by a government-funded bailout.
Financial markets come in many forms, like the stock market, bond market, forex, commodities, and real estate. They have different purposes. Financial markets can also be categorized as capital markets, money markets, primary versus secondary markets, and listed versus over-the-counter markets.
Regardless of their diversity in assets and rules, all financial markets share a common purpose: connecting people who want to buy and sell something, whether an asset or a contract. They facilitate these transactions through methods like auctions or price-discovery processes.
Financial markets serve various purposes, but their core role is to ensure the smart distribution of money and assets in the financial world. They create a free environment for the flow of capital, financial responsibilities, and currency, keeping the global economy running smoothly. Additionally, they provide opportunities for investors to benefit from capital growth over time.
Without Financial Markets, we couldn't distribute capital effectively, and essential economic activities like business, investments, and growth prospects would suffer significant setbacks.
Companies use stock and bond markets to get money from investors. Some people, known as speculators, try to predict future prices in different asset types. Meanwhile, hedgers turn to derivatives markets to reduce risks, and arbitrageurs try to profit from price differences or oddities in various markets. Brokers often play the role of go-betweens, connecting buyers and sellers and earning a fee for their services.