The cash equities trading desk is involved in the trading of individual company securities.

It is referred to as cash equities since if an investor is investing in these securities, they are required to pay cash to purchase those securities. Now, the alternative to cash equities will be equity derivatives for which there is no cash outlay required up front to purchase the underlying securities of any derivative transactions. Within the cash equities world, a large proportion of the transactions are entered into on an automated basis. A bank will have sophisticated internal trading systems, which will direct a client's trade to the location that will achieve the best outcome in terms of minimizing costs and fees whilst getting the best price possible for a client's required specific outcomes. The role of human traders on a cash equities desk is to provide advice and execution of more complicated trades rather than just getting the best price for the client, since that will be achieved using the bank's internal systems. Delta one products are products which give an investor the same exposure as if they had bought an underlying security, or more commonly, an underlying index, and is often referred to as owning the index. So as can be seen from the diagram, as the underlying index increases in value, the price of a delta one product will increase directly in line. Some examples of products that are traded by a delta one trade index include index exchange-traded funds, or ETFs, index swaps, and other equity index tracking products.