In finance, an exchange serves as a marketplace for trading financial instruments. Its primary role is to facilitate fair and orderly trading, as well as efficient dissemination of price information for all securities that are being traded on the exchange.
An exchange may be a physical location where traders meet in person to conduct transactions, or an electronic platform where transactions are executed electronically. Depending on the geographical location, exchanges may also be known as a share exchange or "bourse".
Exchanges can be found in most countries worldwide, and some of the more well-known ones include the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), Nasdaq, London Stock Exchange (LSE), and Tokyo Stock Exchange (TSE), which is also known as Tōshō or TSE/TYO for short.