A society improves its welfare through investment. The financial market provides a link
between saving and investment. Savers can earn high returns from their saving and bor-
rowers can execute their investment plans to earn future profits. In financial markets, assets
are traded in. There are many kinds of financial markets:
• stock markets,
• bond markets,
• currency markets, foreign exchange markets,
• commodity markets (oil, wheat, gold),
• futures and options markets.
In futures or options, more complex contracts than simple buy/sell trades have been intro-
duced. These are called financial derivatives.