Financial securities are tradeable financial assets, including stocks and bonds. Traditionally, they are divided into debt and equity securities. Debt securities include corporate and sovereign bonds, while equity securities include common and preferred shares. There are also hybrid securities, which share some characteristics of debt and equity securities, including preference shares, convertible bonds and equity warrants.
There are different official definitions of securities. In the US, where any tradeable financial asset is a security, derivatives like futures, options and swaps are also securities.
