A security is a tradable financial asset. The term commonly refers to any form of financial instrument, but its legal definition varies by jurisdiction. In some countries and languages the term "security" is commonly used in day-to-day parlance to mean any form of financial instrument, even though the underlying legal and regulatory regime may not have such a broad definition. In some jurisdictions the term specifically excludes financial instruments other than equities and fixed income instruments. In some jurisdictions it includes some instruments that are close to equities and fixed income, e.g., equity warrants.
An investment bank is a financial services company or corporate division that engages in advisory-based financial transactions on behalf of individuals, corporations, and governments. Traditionally associated with corporate finance, such a bank might assist in raising financial capital by underwriting or acting as the client's agent in the issuance of securities. An investment bank may also assist companies involved in mergers and acquisitions (M&A) and provide ancillary services such as market making, trading of derivatives and equity securities, and FICC services. Most investment banks maintain prime brokerage and asset management departments in conjunction with their investment research businesses. As an industry, it is broken up into the Bulge Bracket, Middle Market, and boutique market.
The Commonwealth Bank of Australia is an Australian multinational bank with businesses across New Zealand, Asia, the United States and the United Kingdom. It provides a variety of financial services including retail, business and institutional banking, funds management, superannuation, insurance, investment and broking services. The Commonwealth Bank is the largest Australian listed company on the Australian Securities Exchange as of August 2015 with brands including Bankwest, Colonial First State Investments, ASB Bank, Commonwealth Securities (CommSec) and Commonwealth Insurance (CommInsure). Commonwealth Bank is also the largest bank in the Southern Hemisphere.
The Charles Schwab Corporation is an American multinational financial services company founded and based in San Francisco, California. Headquartered in Financial District, San Francisco, Charles Schwab is the 14th largest banking institution in the United States with over US$3.3 trillion in client assets. It is the third largest asset manager in the world, behind BlackRock and Vanguard. The firm is known for its electronic trading platforms, investor education, and discount brokerage services, particularly reduced and free trading commission charges.
Prime brokerage is the generic name for a bundled package of services offered by investment banks, wealth management firms, and securities dealers to hedge funds which need the ability to borrow securities and cash in order to be able to invest on a netted basis and achieve an absolute return. The prime broker provides a centralized securities clearing facility for the hedge fund so the hedge fund's collateral requirements are netted across all deals handled by the prime broker. These two features are advantageous to their clients.
TD Ameritrade is a broker that offers an electronic trading platform for the trade of financial assets including common stocks, preferred stocks, futures contracts, exchange-traded funds, options, cryptocurrency, mutual funds, and fixed income investments. It also provided margin lending, and cash management services.
INTL FCStone Inc. is a financial services organization. The company operates in five areas: Commercial Hedging, Global Payments, Securities, Physical Commodities, and Clearing and Execution Services (CES).
In the United States, a pattern day trader is a Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) designation for a stock trader who executes four or more day trades in five business days in a margin account, provided the number of day trades are more than six percent of the customer's total trading activity for that same five-day period.
Macquarie Group Limited is an Australian multinational independent investment bank and financial services company. Headquartered and listed in Australia, Macquarie employs more than 14,000 staff in 25 countries, is the world's largest infrastructure asset manager and Australia's top ranked mergers and acquisitions adviser, with more than A$495 billion in assets under management. The company's operating groups include Macquarie Asset Management and Macquarie Capital.
Oppenheimer Holdings is an American multinational independent investment bank and financial services company offering investment banking, financial advisory services, capital markets services, asset management, wealth management, and related products and services worldwide. The company, which once occupied the One World Financial Center building in Manhattan, now bases its operations at 85 Broad Street in New York City.
BBY Ltd was an Australian stock broking, corporate advisory and asset management firm. Prior to its voluntary administration on 18 May 2015, it claimed to be the largest independent stockbroker in Australia and New Zealand by market share. The group provided financial and advisory services to emerging companies and their investors including corporate finance, research, sales & trading, asset management and broker dealer services.
Instinet is an institutional, agency-model broker that also serves as the independent equity trading arm of its parent, Nomura Group. It executes trades for asset management firms, hedge funds, insurance companies, mutual funds and pension funds. Headquartered in New York, the company provides sales trading services and trading technologies such as the Newport EMS, algorithms, trade cost analytics, commission management, independent research and dark pools of liquidity.
Tom Piotrowski is an Australian economist working for financial services company CommSec as a market analyst.
Iress is a technology company providing software to the financial services industry in Asia-Pacific, North America, Africa and Europe. Iress software is used by more than 9,000 businesses and 500,000 users globally.
Virtu Financial is one of the largest providers of financial services, trading products and market making services. Virtu provides product suite including offerings in execution, liquidity sourcing, analytics and broker-neutral, multi-dealer platforms in workflow technology and two-sided quotations and trades in equities, commodities, currencies, options, fixed income, and other securities on over 230 exchanges, markets, and dark pools. Virtu uses proprietary technology to trade large volumes of securities. On April 15, 2015 Virtu Financial successfully priced its IPO which began trading as a NASDAQ-listed public company on April 16, 2015.
Virtual Brokers, a division of BBS Securities Inc., is a brokerage firm that provides an electronic trading platform to trade financial assets. The company is headquartered in Toronto, Canada and provides trade execution services for stocks, bonds, options, exchange-traded fund (ETF) and mutual funds.
Craig James is an economist currently working as chief economist for Commsec. As of September 2012, according to The Australian, James was the third most quoted man in Australian media. Completing regular media appearances in Australia and internationally, his reports such as the iPod index and State of the States are often reported upon and often called a "user-friendly" economic outlook for average individuals.
Finam Holdings is a financial services company headquartered in Moscow, Russia. It is the parent company of Finam Investment Company. In April 2017 it was the third largest brokerage firm in Russia, and ranks second among providers of individual investment accounts in the country.
HDFC securities Limited is a financial services intermediary and a subsidiary of HDFC Bank, a private sector bank in India. It is one of the leading stock broking companies in India and has completed 19 years of operation. HDFC securities was founded in the year 2000 and is headquartered in Mumbai with branches across major cities and towns in India.
Securities market participants in the United States include corporations and governments issuing securities, persons and corporations buying and selling a security, the broker-dealers and exchanges which facilitate such trading, banks which safe keep assets, and regulators who monitor the markets' activities. Investors buy and sell through broker-dealers and have their assets retained by either their executing broker-dealer, a custodian bank or a prime broker. These transactions take place in the environment of equity and equity options exchanges, regulated by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), or derivative exchanges, regulated by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). For transactions involving stocks and bonds, transfer agents assure that the ownership in each transaction is properly assigned to and held on behalf of each investor.
