Stock Market Participants

Part of the SEC operation is maintaining standards for orderly, efficient and fair markets. For doing this, SEC regulates many stock market participants. It includes:

Stock exchange –

The stock exchanges play a very important role in the share markets of India. They offer the organized market for the companies and investors to buy & sell shares. In India, the two main stock exchanges are: Bombay Stock Exchange (or BSE) and National Stock Exchange (or NSE).

Capital market regulators –

For the capital market to work smoothly and competently, proper regulation is important. In India, there are 3 capital market authorities and they are: Ministry of Finance, Securities & Exchange Board India and RBI.

Brokers –

Brokers are the major stakeholders in this capital market. They’re professionals who will facilitate the stock trading for the clients. Most of the brokers deal in different kinds of securities in the stock market. They help the clients to buy and sell shares in a market and take fixed percentage of the trade value as their commission. There are many popular broking agencies that make trading simple for investors in India.

Depository & depository participants –

The depository holds the investor’s securities in an electronic format. It can be done through Depository Participants (or DPs). The two Depositories are National Securities Depository Ltd and Central Depository Service Ltd. These are registered at SEBI. Apart from safe-keeping of the securities, depositories facilitate an easy and smooth transfer of the securities between the accounts.

Listed companies –

Finally, companies listing their stocks on exchange are the stakeholders. After all, it’s their stock, which are getting traded. Therefore, they are highly concerned about activities in the stock market. Furthermore, their decisions will directly affect other stakeholders.

Final Words –

Stock market is a living breathing body. There are many different stakeholders and all of them have a crucial role to play for the smooth functioning of the stock market.