Exchange

Information platform, fixed location for trading certain information and goods, etc. Its role is, with the aid of information platforms, to realize property rights information sharing, off-site transactions, unified coordination, the property rights trading market and various terms to balance it out.

There are two main types of exchanges: commodity exchange and stock exchange.

As an inevitable product of the high degree of development of production and exchange of commodities, the commodity exchange is a particular form of commodity trading market in capitalist society. Its business is trading in kind and futures trading. Today, the status of trading in kind is declining, while futures trading is becoming more and more important. Trading in certain types of commodities in a country, or even in the capitalist world market as a whole, tends to be concentrated in one exchange. Trading in certain types of commodities in a country, or even in the capitalist world market as a whole, is often concentrated in one exchange. Therefore, the exchange has a non-negligible influence on the prices of commodities on the world market. The Chicago Board of Trade in the United States and the London Metal Exchange have a long history.

Stock exchanges, which are markets for the purchase and sale of securities such as bonds and shares, developed after the 1870s. The driving force was the widespread development of joint-stock companies, the rapid accumulation of money-capital and the growing stratum of rentiers, which increased the demand for securities and expanded the volume of securities trading, making company shares and bonds increasingly the main object of trading.

The business of this kind of exchange is firstly, spot trading (buying and selling securities in cash), and secondly, futures trading (securities are delivered and settled only after a certain period of time after the transaction, but the settlement is based on the securities market at the time of the transaction). The characteristic of futures trading is that buyers and sellers generally do not really buy or sell securities, but only bet on the rise and fall of the market, and the settlement is only to pay the difference between the rise and fall of the market.

The stock exchange is a center for the purchase and sale of securities. It is necessary for joint-stock companies to raise funds by offering shares, but it is a place for speculation, especially speculation by capitalists who use futures trading to buy and sell short. Because the securities market is affected by various factors fluctuating up and down, speculators will take advantage of the market price difference to make huge profits, causing the redistribution of money-capital among various capitalists, thus accelerating the process of centralization of capital.

Fluctuations in the securities market often reflect production conditions and economic changes in certain enterprises and even in society. During periods of economic prosperity, people are bullish about the securities market, many buyers buy securities, and the securities market rises sharply. Conversely, in times of economic crisis, when there are many sellers of securities, the stock market plummets. Meanwhile, exchange speculation contributes in part to deepening economic crises. At present, the New York Stock Exchange is the largest and international one among capitalist countries, and there are also other international stock exchange houses in other major cities of the world.