Stock Market Organizations

The financial markets and investment business are carefully regulated and supervised by agencies on a variety of federal and state levels. On the federal level, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is charged with the mission of not only protecting individual and institutional investors but performing other tasks such as maintaining fair, efficient, and orderly markets. A lesser known but equally important role of the SEC is to facilitate capital formation.

For those interested in state regulations, an examination and discussion of regulatory activities on the “state level” is addressed in other sections and categories viewable from the directory.

The role of the SEC is grounded on a multitude of public interest objectives, like full and fair disclosure. While an in-depth examination of the SEC is important to investors, it is just one of the many important organizations that the investing public should study. While we strongly encourage investors interested in organizations like the SEC (that are charged with the responsibility for managing and enforcing federal securities legislation), we endeavor to provide investors with a equally important related financial and market resources. Those resources also provide contact details from the more important and better known public (regulatory) to the lesser known private (participatory) organizations and agencies - all of which play their part in overseeing capital and stock markets activity.

Some of the organizations of interest to investors include the major stock exchanges, commodities exchanges and futures exchanges – all with oversight on financial matters pertaining to investments with both a national and international scope. Some of the stock market organizations that fall into this category include the major US stock exchanges like the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), and the National Association of Securities Dealers Automatic Quotation Market (NASDAQ), and the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME).

However, also worthy of examination are some of the other regulatory participants and associations such as the National Association of Securities Dealers (NASD), the Depository Trust Company (DTC), and the Municipal Securities Rule Making Board (MSRB).

Because each of these organizations plays important roles in maintaining market integrity through the enforcement of federal securities laws and other wide ranging regulations, come with us as we explore some of the most important policies and regulations governing the capital markets ranging from stock exchanges, and professional associations, to Self Regulatory Organizations (“SRO’s”).