The stock exchange is considered a marketplace for securities such as stocks and bonds , as well as for commodities such as silver, gold or even crude oil. Buyers and sellers meet on the stock exchange to trade the relevant securities. The price always depends on supply and demand. Although in principle anyone can buy and sell on the stock exchange, trading nowadays is mainly carried out through banks and brokers who act as intermediaries between sellers and buyers. There are hardly any transactions on site either, although the Frankfurt Stock Exchange, or even more so the New York Stock Exchange, is considered the financial center par excellence. Today almost all transactions take place electronically and the corresponding values are only transmitted virtually.

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There are stock exchanges in eight cities in Germany. The Frankfurt Stock Exchange (including the electronic trading platforms Xetra and Eurex) is the most important stock exchange. On the German stock exchanges in Frankfurt, Berlin, Düsseldorf, Hamburg, Hanover and Munich, trading takes place Monday to Friday between 8:00 a.m. and 8:00 p.m. At the Stuttgart Stock Exchange and the Tradegate trading center in Berlin, trading runs from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. The electronic trading system XETRA is traded between 9:00 a.m. and 5:30 p.m.

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Trading in bonds is shorter, for example in Frankfurt and on Tradegate until 5:30 p.m., in Stuttgart until 6:00 p.m.

On the New York trading centers NYSE and Nasdaq, trading takes place Monday to Friday between 9:30 a.m. and 4:00 p.m. local time, i.e. usually (apart from brief phases of different summer time regulations) between 3:30 p.m. and 10:00 p.m. German time.

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