Three things to take away
- A market is simply a place where buyers and sellers agree a price; the rules around that meeting differ enormously between currencies, shares and crypto.
- Shares trade on a small number of regulated exchanges in set hours, currencies trade between banks through the working week, and crypto trades nonstop on many separate platforms.
- The intermediary you use, and the protections it must give you, shape your risk as much as the asset itself.
Financial markets explained at the simplest level: they are arrangements that let people who want to buy something meet people who want to sell it, and agree a price. The currency market, the stock market and the crypto market all do that. What makes them feel so different is everything around the meeting: who is allowed to take part, when the doors are open, who keeps the asset afterwards and what happens if a middleman fails.
What every market does
Whatever is being traded, a working market performs three jobs. It gathers orders, it matches them, and it records who now owns what. The price you see on a screen is just the level at which the latest buyer and seller agreed.
Two prices are quoted at any moment. The bid is the best price someone is currently willing to pay; the ask (or offer) is the lowest price someone will sell at. The gap between them, the spread, is a cost you pay every time you trade immediately. In a busy market the spread is narrow; in a quiet one it widens.
You can trade in two basic ways. A market order accepts whatever price is available right now. A limit order names the worst price you will accept and waits until someone meets it. Both exist in every market covered on this site.
Three markets, side by side
| Currencies (forex) | Shares | Crypto | |
|---|---|---|---|
| What changes hands | One currency for another | Part-ownership of a listed company | Tokens recorded on a blockchain |
| Where it trades | A network of banks and dealers, with no central exchange | Regulated stock exchanges | Hundreds of separate exchanges and on-chain venues |
| When | Sunday 17:00 to Friday 17:00, New York time | Set weekday sessions, closed on holidays | 24 hours, every day |
| How you usually take part | Through a broker, often with a leveraged contract | Through a licensed broker who holds the shares for you | Through an exchange, or directly from your own wallet |
| Settlement | Usually two business days for spot deals between banks | One business day after the trade for US shares | When the transaction is confirmed on-chain |
Each column is explained in its own lesson: how forex trading works, the stock market for beginners and how crypto works.
Who is in the middle
Very few ordinary people deal with a market directly. You reach it through an intermediary, and that intermediary matters more than most beginners realise.
With shares, a licensed broker sends your order to an exchange and then holds the shares on your behalf, usually in a nominee account that is kept apart from the broker's own money. With currencies, a retail broker typically offers a contract that tracks the exchange rate, so you own a claim on the broker rather than any currency. With crypto, an exchange normally holds the coins in its own wallets and shows you a balance; you can also withdraw them to a wallet you control, which removes the middleman but puts all of the security work on you.
That is why the first question in our platform checklist is not about fees at all. It is about whether the firm is supervised where you live and how it keeps customer assets.
When prices move, and why gaps happen
Because shares and currencies close, news that arrives while they are shut is absorbed all at once when they reopen. A company that reports poor results after the closing bell can open the next morning well below the previous close, with no trading in between. Traders call that jump a gap. Crypto gaps far less on its own venues because it never stops, but it often reacts sharply when big traditional markets open. The market clock on the home page shows which sessions are open now.
Here are the regular hours of some large share markets, in local time: New York 09:30 to 16:00, London 08:00 to 16:30, Frankfurt's Xetra 09:00 to 17:30, Tokyo 09:00 to 11:30 and 12:30 to 15:30, and Hong Kong 09:30 to 12:00 and 13:00 to 16:00.
Crossing borders: the hidden currency step
Buying something priced in another currency adds a conversion. As an illustrative example, if a reader in the UK buys $1,000 of US shares when one pound buys 1.27 dollars, the pounds needed are 1,000 ÷ 1.27 = £787.40, before any fee. Many platforms add a conversion charge on top, sometimes a fraction of a percent and sometimes more. When the shares are sold, the dollars are converted back at whatever the rate is then, so the exchange rate can add to or subtract from the result. Our trading fees lesson shows how these charges stack up.
Leverage and protection
Leverage means controlling a larger position than your deposit, with the deposit acting as margin. Regulators treat it cautiously. In the UK and EU, retail clients trading contracts for difference face caps of 30:1 on major currency pairs, 20:1 on gold and major indices, 5:1 on individual shares and 2:1 on crypto. Retail CFD clients there also have negative balance protection, so they cannot lose more than the money in the account. Crypto platforms based elsewhere may offer far higher leverage with none of those safeguards.
Protection after a failure also differs. Many countries run compensation schemes for customers of licensed brokers; very few offer anything similar for crypto held on an exchange. The margin calculator shows how much a leveraged position locks up.
What this means when you are starting out
- Learn the market's hours and how prices are quoted before placing any order.
- Check who your intermediary is, who supervises it and how it holds your assets.
- Add up every cost, including currency conversion, not just the headline fee.
- Treat leverage as an advanced tool, not a starting point.
Quick answers
Which market is the biggest?
By daily trading value, the currency market is generally described as the largest, because banks, companies and funds exchange currencies constantly. Size does not make it safer for an individual, particularly when leverage is involved.
Why can I trade crypto at night but not shares?
Stock exchanges are organisations with set trading sessions and holidays. Crypto exchanges are independent platforms that choose to run continuously, and the blockchains beneath them never pause.
Is a share market safer than a crypto market?
Share markets are more tightly regulated, which reduces some risks such as a platform misusing customer assets. Prices of individual shares can still fall heavily, so neither market is free of risk.
Sources
- UK Financial Conduct Authority, restrictions on CFDs for retail clients
- European Securities and Markets Authority, CFD product intervention measures
- US Securities and Exchange Commission, T+1 settlement cycle rule