What are liquid assets?

The term liquid asset refers to financial resources that can be converted to cash with relative ease. This type of assets covers cash, US treasury bills, money market mutual funds, bonds, stocks, etc. In some states, precious metals such as silver and gold are also regarded as liquid assets. Money is the most liquid assets of all. Investments in the futures and stock markets are more liquid than investments in residential property. In fact, the most liquid market is the foreign exchange market because huge amounts of money change hands every day. In this sense, a single person or company cannot influence the exchange rate.

A characteristic feature of liquid assets is that they are readily saleable on the market. There is a high degree of certainty about the value of liquid assets: the price level of the next sale is typically close to the level of the last trade.

In simple words, a liquid asset is one that can be exchanged efficiently for another good or asset. Assets are described as liquid if they are sold quickly and with no loss of value. For example, one may be able to sell his car or house on eBay in a couple of hours, but there is a good chance that the assets would be sold for less that they are worth. Assets such as real estates and houses take longer to sell at a reasonable market price and are less liquid. Fixed or illiquid assets are not readily saleable as there are no markets to regularly trade them on (or their value is hard to determine).

In personal finance, liquid asset (apart from cash, funds in checking accounts, etc) is any item that may be sold at a fair market price is a short amount of time. These may be appliances, CDs, collectibles, and anything else that brings a good amount of money fast. In the world of business, liquid assets are the assets which a company can sell or trade quickly: cash, stocks, bonds, and funds in banks. Companies have to dispose of liquid assets in order to keep up with their payments. Businesses that do not have an adequate amount of liquid assets can go bankrupt because of a cash flow crisis. However, if a company has too many liquid assets, it is not profiting from these resources by investing them.

Market makers, together with speculators, are the major contributors to assets’ liquidity. These are companies and individuals seeking to make profit from the rising and falling prices of particular assets. They dispose of and provide capital which increases liquidity.

Central banks are key players when it comes to increasing the liquidity of money. They implement various monetary policies to exert control over the monetary supply of the country. Central banks buy and sell government securities and other financial instruments and use interest and exchange rates to implement monetary policy.