WHAT IS FINANCE?

•Finance can be defined as the science and art of managing money.

•At the personal level, finance is concerned with individuals ‘decisions about how much of
their earnings they spend, how much they save, and how they invest their savings.

•In a business context, finance involves the same types of decisions: how firms raise money
from investors, how firms invest money in an attempt to earn a profit, and how they decide
whether to reinvest profits in the business or distribute them back to investors.

FINANCIAL ENVIRONMENT

Flow of Funds from financial institutions and markets

Why do Financial Markets and Financial Institutions Exist?

To facilitate the flow of funds from the supplier to the demander (of funds)

Financial markets are forums in which suppliers of funds and demanders of funds can
transact business directly.

To raise money, firms can use either private placements or public offerings. A private
placement involves the sale of a new security directly to an investor or group of investors,
such as an insurance company or pension fund. Most firms, however, raise money through
a public offering of securities, which is the sale of either bonds or stocks to the general
public.

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PRIMARY VS. SECONDARY MARKET

When a company or government entity sells stocks or bonds to investors and receives cash
in return, it is said to have sold securities in the primary market. After the primary market
transaction occurs, any further trading in the security does not involve the issuer directly,
and the issuer receives no additional money from these subsequent transactions. Once the
securities begin to trade between investors, they become part of the secondary market

MONEY MARKET VS. CAPITAL MARKET

The money market is created by a financial relationship between suppliers and

demanders of short-term funds (funds with maturities of one year or less). The money
market exists because some individuals, businesses, governments, and financial
institutions have temporarily idle funds that they wish to invest in a relatively safe,
interest-bearing asset.

 marketable securities are Short-term debt instruments, such as U.S. Treasury bills,
Commercial paper, and negotiable certificates of deposit issued by government, business,
and financial institutions, respectively.

The capital market is a market that enables suppliers and demanders of long-term funds to
make transactions.

The key capital market securities are bonds (long-term debt) and both common stock and
preferred stock (equity, or ownership).

 Bonds are long-term debt instruments used by business and government to raise
large sums of money, generally from a diverse group of lenders

 Shares of common stock are units of ownership, or equity, in a corporation.

Common stockholders earn a return by receiving dividends— periodic distributions
of cash—or by realizing increases in share price.

 Preferred stock is a special form of ownership that has features of both a bond and
common stock. Preferred stockholders are promised a fixed periodic dividend that must be
paid prior to payment of any dividends to common stockholders. In other words, preferred
stock has “preference” over common stock

BROKER VS. DEALER MARKETS

The key difference between broker and dealer markets is a technical point dealing with the
way trades are executed. That is, when a trade occurs in a broker market, the two sides to
the transaction, the buyer and the seller, are brought together and the trade takes place at
that point: Party A sells his or her securities directly to the buyer, Party B. In a sense, with
the help of a broker, the securities effectively change hands on the floor of the exchange

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In contrast, when trades are made in a dealer market, the buyer and the seller are never
brought together directly. Instead, market makers execute the buy/sell orders. Market
makers are securities dealers who “make markets” by offering to buy or sell certain
securities at stated prices. Essentially, two separate trades are made: Party A sells his or
her securities (in, say, Dell) to a dealer, and Party B buys his or her securities (in Dell) from
another, or possibly even the same, dealer. Thus, there is always a dealer (market maker)
on one side of a dealer–market transaction.

Efficient market

A market that allocates funds to their most productive uses as a result of competition
among wealth-maximizing investors and that determines and publicizes prices that are
believed to be close to their true value.

From a firm’s perspective, the role of a capital market is to be a liquid market where firms
can interact with investors to obtain valuable external financing resources. From investors’
perspectives, the role of a capital market is to be an efficient market that allocates funds
to their most productive uses.

Financial Institutions

Financial institutions serve as intermediaries by channelling the savings of individuals,

businesses, and governments into loans or investments. Many financial institutions directly
or indirectly pay savers interest on deposited funds; others provide services for a fee (for
example, checking accounts for which customers pay service charges). Some financial
institutions accept customers’ savings deposits and lend this money to other customers or
to firms; others invest customers’ savings in earning assets such as real estate or stocks and
bonds; and some do both. Financial institutions are required by the government to operate
within established regulatory guidelines.

Commercial banks are among the most important financial institutions in the Economy
because they provide savers with a secure place to invest funds and they Offer both
individuals and companies loans to finance investments, such as the Purchase of a new
home and the expansion of a business.

Investment banks are institutions that

(1) assist companies in raising capital
(2) advise firms on major transactions such as mergers or financial restructurings , and
(3) engage in trading and market making activities.

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