The market is a highly evolved mechanism which - for all the flak directed at it - serves a vital need in a modern capitalist economy. Discover the basic principles that underlie all financial markets. Understand the basic structure of the marketplace. Find out who does what and why - from underwriters to marketmakers. And get a snapshot of all the major products and how they're related.

Financial markets can be broadly divided into short-term finance and long-term finance. Long-term finance is provided by capital markets. Short-term finance is provided by money markets. The borrowing and lending in money markets is high volume, low risk and short-term.

Last available figures from the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) show that on an average day, over $1 trillion changed hands in the 24 hour global FX marketplace. It is the world's most heavily traded financial market. Find out how it works and what it is for.

There are two ways for companies to raise money for long-term business investment: they can borrow it and/or they can issue shares, otherwise known as stocks. In the world of corporate finance, stocks are called equity capital and borrowed money is debt capital. For the investor they represent two fundamentally different propositions.

Bonds are a lower risk investment than shares - so most of the time they will give you lower returns - but sometimes, particularly over shorter periods, they can outperform shares and their prices will almost always be more stable. When stock prices are volatile this relative stability can look extremely attractive. Find out what bonds are and how they work.

In recent years, derivatives have become increasingly important in the field of finance and, in fact, much of the development of financial markets since the 1980s has been directly attributable to the expansion of the derivatives industry. In this sense, derivatives markets are the engine of a lot of financial innovation. So what are derivatives?

What drives the markets? Fact, rumour, sentiment or a combination of the lot. What we do know is that markets respond to news. Find out why and how. And find out what you should be looking out for.