Online Securities Fraud

Finance is the lifeblood of an economy. Businesses require capital in order to start up, and usually require additional resources to maintain or expand their activities. In some cases, they may simply reinvest their profits. But expansion on a significant scale may require more than this. Thus, businesses may also seek to borrow funds or to solicit investments in return for the investor's share of future profit. One of the basic means by which this latter strategy is pursued in industrial societies is for businesses to solicit investments from the public through the initial public offering of shares, and for subsequent buying and selling of shares by investors who expect the value of the shares in question to rise or fall. Securities markets are thus integral to a nation's economic system.