A type of financial assets (unrestricted, short-term financial instruments) that can be easily traded in the market (a public stock exchange or a public bond exchange). Examples include stocks, bonds, and shares in mutual funds. These constitute short-term investments (maturities are less than 90 days) with high liquidity that could be sold and be converted into cash quickly.

These securities are presented as assets, particularly as liquid assets, on an entity’s balance sheet thanks to their convertibility into cash.

Other examples of marketable securities are ETFs which represent marketable securities that allow their holders to buy and sell collections of underlying assets including stocks, bonds, and commodities.