Financial instruments in the context of "Forward contract"

An exchange, bourse (/bʊərs/), trading exchange or trading venue is an organized market where people can buy and sell financial instruments, such as tradable securities, commodities, foreign exchange and derivative contracts.

The secondary market, also called the aftermarket and follow on public offering, is the financial market in which previously issued financial instruments such as stock, bonds, options, and futures are bought and sold. The initial sale of the security by the issuer to a purchaser, who pays proceeds to the issuer, is the primary market. All sales after the initial sale of the security are sales in the secondary market. Whereas the term primary market refers to the market for new issues of securities, and "[a] market is primary if the proceeds of sales go to the issuer of the securities sold," the secondary market in contrast is the market created by the later trading of such securities.

With primary issuances of securities or financial instruments (the primary market), often an underwriter purchases these securities directly from issuers, such as corporations issuing shares in an initial public offering (IPO) or private placement. Then the underwriter re-sells the securities to other buyers, in what is referred to as a secondary market or aftermarket (or a buyer in contrast may buy directly from the federal government, in the case of a government issuing treasuries).

Abel Seyler (23 August 1730, Liestal – 25 April 1800, Rellingen) was a Swiss-born theatre director and former merchant banker, who was regarded as one of the great theatre principals of 18th century Europe. He played a pivotal role in the development of German theatre and opera, and was considered "the leading patron of German theatre" in his lifetime. He supported the development of new works and experimental productions, helping to establish Hamburg as a center of theatrical innovation and to establish a publicly funded theater system in Germany. Working with some of Germany's foremost actors and playwrights of his era, he is credited with pioneering a new more realist style of acting, introducing Shakespeare to a German language audience, and with promoting the concept of a national theatre in the tradition of Ludvig Holberg, the Sturm und Drang playwrights, and serious German opera, becoming the "primary agent for change in the German opera scene" in the late 18th century. Already in his lifetime, he was described as "one of German art's most meritorious men."

The son of a Basel Reformed priest, Seyler moved to London and then to Hamburg as a young adult, and established himself as a merchant banker in the 1750s. During the Seven Years' War and its immediate aftermath his bank Seyler & Tillemann engaged in an ever-increasing and complex, "malicious" speculation with financial instruments and went spectacularly bankrupt with enormous debts in the wake of the Amsterdam banking crisis of 1763, resulting in a decade of expansive litigation. Although they were wealthy bankers, Seyler and his business partner were "in no way representatives of the Hamburg bourgeoisie." A flamboyant bon vivant who was regarded with suspicion in Hamburg, Seyler symbolized a new and more aggressive form of capitalism.

This is a list of sovereign wealth funds by country. A sovereign wealth fund (SWF) is a fund owned by a state (or a political subdivision of a federal state) composed of financial assets such as stocks, bonds, property or other financial instruments. Sovereign wealth funds are entities that manage the national savings for the purposes of investment. The accumulated funds may have their origin in, or may represent, foreign currency deposits, foreign exchange reserves, gold, special drawing rights (SDRs) and International Monetary Fund (IMF) reserve position held by central banks and monetary authorities, along with other national assets such as pension investments, oil funds, or other industrial and financial holdings. These are assets of the sovereign nations which are typically held in reserves domestic and reserve foreign currencies such as the dollar, euro, pound sterling and yen. The names attributed to the management entities may include state-owned (federal, state and provincial) central banks, national monetary authorities, official investment companies, sovereign oil funds, pension funds, among others.

Some countries may have more than one SWF. In the United States, several states have their own SWFs. In February 2025, President Donald Trump signed an executive order to establish a national sovereign wealth fund. The list does not include pension funds that do not meet the SWF criteria.

The American subprime mortgage crisis was a multinational financial crisis that occurred between 2007 and 2010, contributing to the 2008 financial crisis. It led to a severe economic recession, with millions becoming unemployed and many businesses going bankrupt. The U.S. government intervened with a series of measures to stabilize the financial system, including the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) and the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA).

The collapse of the United States housing bubble and high interest rates led to unprecedented numbers of borrowers missing mortgage repayments and becoming delinquent. This ultimately led to mass foreclosures and the devaluation of housing-related securities. The housing bubble preceding the crisis was financed with mortgage-backed securities (MBSes) and collateralized debt obligations (CDOs), which initially offered higher interest rates (i.e. better returns) than government securities, along with attractive risk ratings from rating agencies. Despite being highly rated, most of these financial instruments were made up of high-risk subprime mortgages.

A trader is a person, firm, or entity in finance who buys and sells financial instruments, such as forex, cryptocurrencies, stocks, bonds, commodities, derivatives, and mutual funds, indices in the capacity of agent, hedger, arbitrager, or speculator.

Seyler & Tillemann was a Hamburg merchant bank in the 1750s and 1760s, that was owned by Abel Seyler and Johann Martin Tillemann. It involved itself in the currency market and "malicious" speculation with financial instruments during the Seven Years' War. It had ties to the brothers De Neufville in Amsterdam. Seyler & Tillemann went bankrupt as a result of the Amsterdam banking crisis of 1763 with 3–4 million Mark Banco in debts, an enormous sum. Its downfall also contributed to the downfall of other banking houses e.g. in Scandinavia.

In 1761 Seyler & Tillemann, acting as agents of their close business associate Heinrich Carl von Schimmelmann, leased the mint factory in Rethwisch from the impoverished Frederick Charles, Duke of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Plön, a member of a cadet branch of the Danish royal family, to produce debased coins in the final years of the Seven Years' War. Seyler and Tillemann also owned a large silver refinery in Hamburg.