Primary market
Principles of Finance glossary · Financial Statements, Markets & Working Capital
Definition
The market in which new securities are sold by issuers to initial investors.
Primary market in plain English
The primary market is where brand-new investments are born — the very first sale, straight from the company (or government) that created them to the first buyers. Think of it as buying a phone directly from the factory the day it launches, before it ever hits the resale market. When a company sells new shares or bonds here, the cash actually goes to the company to fund its business. (After that first sale, people trade those same securities among themselves on the "secondary" market — like reselling that phone — and the company gets none of that money.)
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