Security (financial instrument)

Investierenab 9 J.

Umbrella term for tradable financial products such as stocks, bonds, ETFs and funds. Securities are held in a securities account.

A security (Wertpapier) is a document that certifies a property right – for example a stake in a company (share) or a claim (bond).

Main types of securities:

• Shares: company stakes with voting rights and a share in profits
• Bonds: debt certificates with fixed interest (a state or company borrows money)
• Funds/ETFs: bundles of many securities (diversification)
• Derivatives: options, futures, certificates (derived from underlying assets)
• Profit participation certificates (Genussscheine): hybrid between share and bond

German securities market:

• Over 1.5 million different securities on German exchanges
• Of which: ~3,500 shares, ~500,000 certificates/warrants, the rest: bonds and funds
• Daily Xetra trading volume: over 5 billion euros

Segregated assets: ETFs and funds are segregated assets (Sondervermögen) – your money is protected if the fund company goes bust. NOT so with certificates and bonds (issuer risk!).

Did you know? German exchanges list more than 1.5 million different securities – including more than 500,000 warrants and certificates alone, but only about 3,500 shares.

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