FINANCIAL MARKETS.THE BOND MARKET People and organizations wanting to borrow Money are
bought together with those having surplus funds in the financial
markets.
There are a great many different financial markets, each
one consisting of many institutions, dealing with different
instruments in terms of the instrument maturity and the assets
backing it, and serving different types of customers.
Generally, financial markets are classified as Money or
capital markets and primary or secondary markets.
Money markets deal in short-term securities having
maturities of one year or less. Capital markets deal in long-term
securities having maturities greater than one year. An investor
who purchases new securities is participating in a primary
financial market.
So, when businesses, units of government or individuals
can not satisfy their needs for funds by revenue from sales of
goods and services, they can turn to either debt financing (any
process by which the firm gets cash or some other assets in
return for a promise to pay an agreed upon sum plus interest) or
equity financing (any process by which a firm raises funds in
return for a share in its ownership and management).
Some sources of funds available to businesses (like
issuing stock) are not available to governments go into debt –
they borrow short and long-term funds by issuing bonds.
A bond is an instrument in which the issuer
(debtor/borrower) promises to repay to the lender/investor the
amount borrowed plus interest over some specified period of
time .It should be stressed that one of the most important
characteristics of a bond is the nature of its issuer. Issuers
include federal (central) governments and their agencies,
supranationals (such as the World Bank, the Asian Deve-
lopment Bank), municipial governments, and nonfinancial and
financial corporations.