43. The global debt securities market: composition, principles of organization.

Debt securities- any debt instrument that can be bought or sold between two parties and has basic terms defined, such as notional amount (amount borrowed), interest rate and maturity/renewal date. Debt securities include government bonds, corporate bonds, CDs, municipal bonds, preferred stock, collateralized securities (such as CDOs, CMOs, GNMAs) and zero-coupon securities.

The interest rate on a debt security is largely determined by the perceived repayment ability of the borrower; higher risks of payment default almost always lead to higher interest rates to borrow capital.

Most debt securities are traded over-the-counter, with much of the trading now conducted electronically. The total dollar value of trades conducted daily in the debt markets is much larger than that of stocks, as debt securities are held by many large institutional investors as well as governments and non-profit organizations.

Debt securities on the whole are safer investments than equity securities, but riskier than cash. Debt securities get their measure of safety by having a principal amount that is returned to the lender at the maturity date or upon the sale of the security. They are typically classified and grouped by their level of default risk, the type of issuer and income payment cycles.

The holder of a debt security is typically entitled to the payment of principal and interest, together with other contractual rights under the terms of the issue, such as the right to receive certain information. Debt securities are generally issued for a fixed term and redeemable by the issuer at the end of that term. Debt securities may be protected by collateral or may be unsecured, and, if they are unsecured, may be contractually "senior" to other unsecured debt meaning their holders would have a priority in a bankruptcy of the issuer

The bond market (also known as the credit, or fixed income market) is a financial market where participants can issue new debt, known as the primary market, or buy and sell debt securities, known as the Secondary market, usually in the form of bonds. The primary goal of the bond market is to provide a mechanism for long term funding of public and private expenditures. Traditionally, the bond market was largely dominated by the United States, but today the US is about 44% of the market. As of 2009, the size of the worldwide bond market (total debt outstanding) is an estimated $82.2 trillion, of which $31.2 trillion refers to U.S. bond market debt. Nearly all of the $822 billion average daily trading volume in the U.S. bond market takes place between broker-dealers and large institutions in a decentralized, over-the-counter (OTC) market. However, a small number of bonds, primarily corporate, are listed on exchanges.

Types of bond markets: Corporate; Government & agency; Municipal; Mortgage backed, asset backed, and collateralized debt obligation; Funding

Bond market participants: either buyers (debt issuer) of funds or sellers (institution) of funds and often both. They include institutional investors; Governments; traders; individuals

Because of the specificity of individual bond issues, and the lack of liquidity in many smaller issues, the majority of outstanding bonds are held by institutions like pension funds, banks and mutual funds. In the United States, approximately 10% of the market is currently held by private individuals.