ABSTRACT
The chapter discusses significant economic differences among the major domestic markets. Its purpose is not to develop a fully comprehensive list of traded securities, but to help you understand major features of the transactions carried out in four major types of domestic markets. The four types found in most developed financial systems are the money markets, the equity or stock markets, the bond markets and the mortgage markets. To discuss these markets’ features, the chapter mainly uses examples from the United States. One reason for focusing on US transactions is that they are representive of most countries’ domestic financial market activity. A second reason is that some of the US markets discussed are more fully developed than their counterparts in other countries, and thus serve as examples of the directions in which other countries’ markets are likely to evolve.
