A company or firm specializing in buying and selling securities. Generally speaking, they have seats in the stock exchange. As the concentration place of securities buyers and sellers, they occupy an important position in the whole securities market.
According to the different business activities, securities companies can be divided into the following types.
A securities company is a legal person enterprise specializing in securities trading. Its business activities are very extensive, mainly including:
① Self-operated business, the company buys and sells securities for itself at its own risk.
(2) Agency business, accepting the entrustment of customers, buying and selling securities on their behalf, and handling the business of issuing, underwriting or selling securities for customers without taking trading risks.
(3) Credit business: There are two main types of businesses that companies provide financing to customers. One is the use of mortgage loans, in which customers use their own securities as collateral to finance securities companies, and the other is the use of credit transactions, in which customers pay a certain margin with their own reputation to obtain loans from securities companies.
(4) Consulting business, providing customers with various services such as securities trading, market information and other relevant materials.
Foreign exchange dealer? Only engaged in proprietary securities business, not entrusted business, in fact, is a securities firm. They use their own funds to buy and sell securities, and get the difference income from the fluctuation of market prices. In order to seize the favorable opportunity in the frequent changes of securities prices, securities trading activities are often completed in a very short time, so they are called "hat snatchers".
Sometimes, in order to make a profit, they will buy and sell the same stock many times in a trading day. This kind of securities firms are highly speculative, but their trading behavior objectively plays a positive role in maintaining the continuity of the securities market, promoting trading and narrowing the spread.
A retail dealer? Specializing in dealing with securities trading in less than one marketing unit, also known as small dealers. For example, the new york Stock Exchange generally takes 65,438+000 shares as a trading unit, and transactions with less than 65,438+000 shares are called zero-share transactions. When a customer entrusts a brokerage firm to buy and sell less than one marketing unit, the brokerage firm entrusts a zero-share dealer to handle it, and charges a handling fee according to regulations.
Retail investors only accept the entrustment of brokers and do not directly buy and sell securities for customers. Their function is to gather scattered shares into concentrated shares, which provides convenience for small investors with weak funds to participate in securities trading.