Marketable Financial Assets

How many of you have bank accounts?
How many of you have invested in post office deposits?
How many of you have Life Insurance policies?
How many of you have invested in company deposits or in provident funds?

Majority of you have invested in at least one or more financial assets.
What do you do when you open a bank account?
You go to a bank and meet bank officials. They ask for a few documents and open your bank account.
What do you do when you invest in post office deposits?
You go to your nearest post office and deposit your money.

Simply put, there’s a direct relationship between the issuer and the investor in case of non-marketable securities.
But, what do you do when you want to close a bank account? Do you sell it?
No. You can’t.
Because, bank accounts and post office accounts are non-transferrable and non-marketable.
What are other non-marketable financial assets? LIC investments, bank accounts, company deposits, provident fund deposits are all non-marketable financial assets because you can’t sell/market them because there’s no secondary market available for them.
Then what are marketable financial assets?
Marketable financial assets are those assets which are easily traded and a secondary market is available for them.
Examples of marketable financial assets are—equity shares, bonds, mutual funds etc.

In short, there’s no direct relationship between the issuer and the investor in case of non-marketable securities.
Since there’s a secondary market or a middleman available in this case, buyers and sellers are not required to meet physically.
As an investor/analyst, you need to know different financial assets available in market and need to check which assets suit you best.
Here’s a list of marketable/non-marketable financial assets.