In the United States market, hundreds of different types of securities are traded. Every day, goods worth billions of dollars trade hands. This well oiled machine is run by a number of different institutions which we will call the “players” in the market.
Investment Houses
The primary players are the small group of large investment houses which are huge financial corporations. Some of them were founded more than a hundred years ago and originally functioned as investment banks that helped to issue stocks and bonds. Over there years, their activities broadened and today they are active in a wide variety of fields.
A typical investment house includes the following departments:
- Investment Banking.
- Research.
- Brokerage.
- Market Making.
- Trading.
- Asset Management.
- Private Banking.
- Structured Finance.
The large US investment houses are:
- Goldman Sachs Group.
- Merril Lynch & Co.
- Lehman Brothers.
- Morgan Stanley.
- J.P. Morgan Chase & Co.
Along side the investment houses there are additional players who we will split into four categories:
- Infrastructure Companies.
- Traders.
- Service Providers.
- Regulators .
