The securities market has two interdependent and inseparable segments:
The Primary and the Secondary Market
The primary market provides the channel for creation of new securities through issuance of financial instruments by public companies as well as Governments and Government agencies and bodies whereas the secondary market helps the holders of these financial instruments to sale for exiting from the investment. The price signals, which subsume all information about the issuer and his business including associated risk, generated in the secondary market, help the primary market in allocation of funds. The primary market issuance is done either through public issues or private placement.
A public issue does not limit any entity in investing while in private placement, the issuance is done to select people. In terms of the Companies Act, 1956, an issue becomes public if it results in allotment to more than 50 persons. This means an issue resulting in allotment to less than 50 persons is private placement. There are two major types of issuers who issue securities. The corporate entities issue mainly debt and equity instruments (shares, debentures, etc.), while the governments (central and state governments) issue debt securities (dated securities, treasury bills).
The secondary market enables participants who hold securities to adjust their holdings in response to changes in their assessment of risk and return. They also sell securities for cash to meet their liquidity needs. The exchanges do not provide facility for spot trades in a strict sense. Closest to spot market is the cash market in exchanges where settlement takes place after some time. Trades taking place over a trading cycle (one day under rolling settlement) are settled together after a certain time.
All the 23 stock exchanges in the country provide facilities for trading of corporate securities. Trades executed on NSE are cleared and settled by a clearing corporation which provides novation and settlement guarantee. Nearly 100% of the trades in capital market segment are settled through demat delivery.
NSE also provides a formal trading platform for trading of a wide range of debt securities including government securities in both retail and wholesale mode. NSE also provides trading in derivatives of equities, interest rate as well indices. In derivatives market (F&O market segment of NSE), standardised contracts are traded for future settlement. These futures can be on a basket of securities like an index or an individual security. In case of options, securities are traded for conditional future delivery.
There are two types of options – a put option permits the owner to sell a security to the writer of options at a predetermined price while a call option permits the owner to purchase a security from the writer of the option at a predetermined price. These options can also be on individual stocks or basket of stocks like index. Two exchanges, namely NSE and the Stock Exchange, Mumbai (BSE) provide trading of derivatives of securities.
Today the market participants have the flexibility of choosing from a basket of products like:-
• Equities
• Bonds issued by both Government and Companies
• Futures on benchmark indices as well as stocks
• Options on benchmark indices as well as stocks
• Futures on interest rate products like Notional 91-day T-Bills, 10 year
notional zero coupon bond and 6% notional 10 year bond
The past decade in many ways has been remarkable for securities market in India. It has grown exponentially as measured in terms of amount raised from the market, number of stock exchanges and other intermediaries, the number of listed stocks, market capitalisation, trading volumes and turnover on stock exchanges, and investor population.
Along with this growth, the profiles of the investors, issuers and intermediaries have changed significantly. The market has witnessed several institutional changes resulting in drastic reduction in transaction costs and significant improvements in efficiency, transparency, liquidity and safety.
In a short span of time, Indian derivatives market has got a place in list of top global exchanges. In single stock futures category, the Futures Industry Association (FIA) placed NSE in second position in the year 2000. Reforms in the securities market, particularly the establishment and empowerment of SEBI, market determined allocation of resources, screen based nation-wide trading, dematerialization and electronic transfer of securities, rolling settlement and ban on deferral products, sophisticated risk management and derivatives trading, have greatly improved the regulatory framework and efficiency of trading and settlement. Indian market is now comparable to many developed markets in terms of a number of qualitative parameters.
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