Stock exchange

A securities exchange, also called stock market or stock exchange is an exchange, are traded on the securities, equities and derivatives in the sense of national Securities Trading Act.

Here are the stock prices of the largest public companies, the so-called standard papers, quoted continuously. But stock exchanges do not serve the issuance of titles, but also act as a circulation market, which enables investors to acquire at low cost and the lowest possible cost securities and to separate from them again. This stock exchanges are in the modern financial market theory, viewed as an independent institution, as a service company, whose function consists in the encounter of contractors.

In Germany, there are currently seven stock exchanges on which floor trading is operated (as of January 2009). By far the largest of which is the Frankfurt Stock Exchange. With the development of electronic commerce ( eg in Germany XETRA ) and the possibility of access for private investors to be able to world trade without going through a local bank, almost in real time at the stock exchanges, is internationally occurred a structural change, the end is not yet be foreseen. This includes the independence of individual sites, since the shares of internationally operating companies can be traded on various stock exchanges around the world ( eg, Frankfurt, London, New York ), and thus no restriction by opening times.

Both stock market and securities trading are interpreted as a synonym for a securities exchange.

Exchanges are named according to the type of goods traded; the Stock Exchange therefore differs from commodity exchanges, futures exchanges and currency markets.