A financial market is a market in which people trade financial securities and derivatives such as futures and options at low transaction costs. Securities include stocks and bonds, and precious metals.
The term “market” is sometimes used for what are more strictly exchanges, organizations that facilitate the trade in financial securities, e.g., a stock exchange or commodity exchange. This may be a physical location (like the NYSE, BSE, LSE, JSE) or an electronic system (like NASDAQ). Much trading of stocks takes place on an exchange; still, corporate actions (merger, spinoff) are outside an exchange, while any two companies or people, for whatever reason, may agree to sell stock from the one to the other without using an exchange.
Trading of currencies and bonds is largely on a bilateral basis, although some bonds trade on a stock exchange, and people are building electronic systems for these as well, similar to stock exchanges.
Within the financial sector, the term “financial markets” is often used to refer just to the markets that are used to raise finance: for long term finance, the Capital markets; for short term finance, the Money markets. Another common use of the term is as a catchall for all the markets in the financial sector, as per examples in the breakdown below.
Capital markets which consist of:
Stock markets, which provide financing through the issuance of shares or common stock, and enable the subsequent trading thereof.
Bond markets, which provide financing through the issuance of bonds, and enable the subsequent trading thereof.
Commodity markets, which facilitate the trading of commodities.
Money markets, which provide short term debt financing and investment.
Derivatives markets, which provide instruments for the management of financial risk.[1]
Futures markets, which provide standardized forward contracts for trading products at some future date; see also forward market.
Foreign exchange markets, which facilitate the trading of foreign exchange.
Cryptocurrency market which facilitate the trading of digital assets and financial technologies.
Spot market
Interbank lending market
The capital markets may also be divided into primary markets and secondary markets. Newly formed (issued) securities are bought or sold in primary markets, such as during initial public offerings. Secondary markets allow investors to buy and sell existing securities. The transactions in primary markets exist between issuers and investors, while secondary market transactions exist among investors.
Financial Markets 101 