JSE Securities Exchange

The JSE Limited (previously the JSE Securities Exchange and the Johannesburg Stock Exchange)[1] is the largest stock exchange in Africa. It is situated at the corner of Maude Street and Gwen Lane in Sandton, Gauteng, South Africa. In 2003 the JSE had an estimated 472 listed companies and a market capitalisation of US$182.6 billion (€158 billion) as well as an average monthly traded value of US$ 6,399 million (€5.5 billion). As of 30 September 2006, the market capitalisation of the JSE was at US$579.1 billion. The JSE is presently the 16th largest stock exchange worldwide.
The JSE is planning to create a pan-African exchange by initially enabling investors to trade in shares from Ghana, Namibia, Zimbabwe and Zambia. Later it will expand this across the rest of Africa.

Jakarta Stock Exchange

Originally opened in 1912 under the Dutch colonial government, it was re-opened in 1977 after several closures during World War I and World War II. After being reopened in 1977, the exchange was under the management of the newly created Capital Market Supervisory Agency (Badan Pengawas Pasar Modal, or Bapepam), which answered to the Ministry of Finance. Trading activity and market capitalization grew alongside the development of Indonesia's financial markets and private sector - highlighted by a major bull run in 1990. On July 13, 1992, the exchange was privatized under the ownership of Jakarta Exchange Inc. As a result, the functions of Bapepam changed to become the Capital Market Supervisory Agency. On March 22, 1995 JSX launched the Jakarta Automated Trading System (JATS). In September 2007, Jakarta Stock Exchange and Surabaya Stock Exchange merged and named Indonesian Stock Exchange by Indonesian Minister of Finance.

Istanbul Stock Exchange

The Istanbul Stock Exchange (ISE)[1] (Turkish: İstanbul Menkul Kıymetler Borsası, İMKB) is the only corporation in Turkey for securities exchange established to provide trading in equities, bonds and bills, revenue-sharing certificates, private sector bonds, foreign securities and real estate certificates as well as international securities. The ISE was founded as an autonomous, professional organization in early 1986. It is situated in a modern building complex in Emirgan, on the European side of Istanbul since May 15, 1995. The Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the ISE is Hüseyin Erkan who was appointed by the government on November 2, 2007.
ISE is home to 320 national companies. Trading hours are 09:30-12:00 for the first session and 14:00-17:00 for the second session, on workdays. All ISE members are incorporated banks and brokerage houses.
ISE price indices are computed and published throughout the trading session while the return indices are calculated and published at the close of the session only. The indices are: ISE National-All Shares Index, ISE National-30, ISE National-50, ISE National-100, Sector and sub-sector indices, ISE Second National Market Index, ISE New Economy Market Index and ISE Investment Trusts Index. The ISE National-100 Index contains both the ISE National-50 and ISE National-30 Index and is used as a main indicator of the national market.

Hong Kong Stock Exchange

The exchange has predominantly been the main exchange for Hong Kong where shares of listed companies are traded. It is Asia's third largest stock exchange in terms of market capitalization, behind the Tokyo Stock Exchange and the Shanghai Stock Exchange. As of 31 December 2007, the Hong Kong Stock Exchange had 1,241 listed companies with a combined market capitalization of $2.7 trillion.[1] Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing is the holding company for the exchange.

Helsinki Stock Exchange

The Helsinki Stock Exchange (Finnish: Helsingin Pörssi, Swedish: Helsingforsbörsen) is a stock exchange located in Helsinki, Finland. Since 3 September 2003 it has been part of OMX, referred to as OMX Helsinki (OMXH). Since NASDAQ's acquisition of OMX in February 2008, the official name of the Helsinki exchange has been NASDAQ OMX Helsinki.

Ghana Stock Exchange

The Ghana Stock Exchange (GSE) is the principal stock exchange of Ghana. The exchange was incorporated in July 1989 with trading commencing in 1990. It currently has around 30 listed companies and 2 corporate bonds. All types of securities can be listed. Criteria for listing include capital adequacy, profitability, spread of shares, years of existence and management efficiency. The GSE is located in Accra.

Frankfurt Stock Exchange

The Frankfurt Stock Exchange (German: FWB Frankfurter Wertpapierbörse) is a stock exchange located in Frankfurt, Germany.
The Frankfurt Stock Exchange is one of the biggest and most efficient exchange places in the world. It is owned and operated by Deutsche Börse, which also owns the European futures exchange Eurex and clearing company Clearstream.
The Frankfurt Stock Exchange has over 90 percent of turnover in the German market and a big share in the European market. Here the Frankfurt Stock Exchange floor trading loses, but in fast developing and expanding electronic trading (Xetra trading system) the FSE gains in European and international trade: partner-exchanges adopted the Xetra (trading system) (as the Vienna Stock Exchange in 1999, the Irish Stock Exchange in 2000 and the Budapest Stock Exchange in 2003); consolidation continues.

Euronext Lisbon

Euronext Lisbon is a stock exchange in Lisbon, Portugal. It belongs to the NYSE Euronext group, the first global stock exchange.
Euronext Lisbon trades equities, public and private bonds, participation bonds, warrants, corporate warrants, investment trust units, and exchange traded funds. The BVL General index is the exchanges official index, and includes all listed shares on the official market. Settlement is T+3. Derivatives include long-term interest rate futures, three month Lisbor futures, stock index futures and options on the PSI-20 Stock index, and Portuguese stock futures. Trading hours are 9 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. (CET), Monday through Friday.

Brussels Stock Exchange

The Brussels Stock Exchange (BSE) (French: Bourse de Bruxelles, Dutch: Beurs van Brussel) was founded in Brussels, Belgium by Napoleonic decree in 1801. On September 22, 2000, the BSE merged with Paris Bourse, Lisbon Stock Exchange and the stock exchanges of Amsterdam, to form Euronext N.V., the first pan-European exchange for equities and derivatives, with common trading and clearing of all products, and was renamed Euronext Brussels. The most well known index on the Brussels Stock Exchange is the BEL20.

Amsterdam Stock Exchange

The Amsterdam Stock Exchange is the former name for the stock exchange based in Amsterdam. It merged on 22 September 2000 with the Brussels Stock Exchange and the Paris Stock Exchange to form Euronext, and is now known as Euronext Amsterdam.

Channel Islands Stock Exchange

The Channel Islands Stock Exchange (CISX) is a stock exchange operating in St. Peter Port, Guernsey. It was founded as a company limited both by guarantee and by shares. The aim of CISX is to be the premier offshore stock exchange in the European time zone and the Exchange of choice for the listing of investment funds, debt instruments and the shares of companies.
CISX was established in October 1998. Since than, it has experienced rapid growth. It is an integral part of the infrastructure upon which the top tier finance centre of Guernsey relies and offers a service and structure unique in the European time zone.
It provides listing facility and screen-based trading for local and international trading companies, investment companies - both open and closed-ended funds - specialist debt securities and Channel Islands depository receipts (CIDRS). These includes specialist securities, including, Eurobonds, Structured Debt, Warrants and SPVs; and investment funds.
Some of the strengths of CISX are competitive pricing, responsive and approachable market authority that meets daily to consider applications for listings, international standards of issuer regulation, enhanced marketability and added value service, and premier location.

Casablanca Stock Exchange

The Casablanca Stock Exchange (French: La Bourse de Casablanca) is a stock exchange in Casablanca, Morocco. The Casablanca Stock Exchange (CSE), which achieves one of the best performances in the region of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), is Africa's second largest Bourse after Johannesburg Stock Exchange, South Africa and is the third oldest stock exchange in Africa

Cairo & Alexandria Stock Exchange

Egypt's Stock Exchange (CASE) comprises two exchanges, Cairo and Alexandria, both of which are governed by the same board of directors and share the same trading, clearing and settlement systems. In March 2009, the 30 largest companies being traded, CASE 30 Index, changed its name to EGX 30 Index. The Alexandria Stock Exchange was officially established in 1883, with Cairo following in 1903.
Both exchanges were very active in the 1940s, and the combined Egyptian Stock Exchange ranked fifth in the world. The central planning and socialist policies adopted in the mid 1950's led to the Stock Exchange's dormancy between 1961 and 1992.
In the 1990s, the Egyptian government's restructuring and economic reform program resulted in the revival of the Egyptian stock market, and a major change in the organisation of the Cairo and Alexandria Stock Exchanges took place in January 1997 with the election of a new board of directors and the establishment of a number of board committees.
Under the chairman at that time, Sherif Raafat, the board of directors determined to modernise the Exchange. Steps taken since then have included:
creating a coherent organisation structure with clear division of authority and responsibilities
deciding to install a new state-of-the-art trading, clearing and settling system conforming to international standards (In May 1998 a contract was signed with EFA Software Ltd., a Canadian company, to this end)
developing new membership and trading rules, and arbitration and dispute resolution procedures
Planning the improvement of the clearing, settlement and payment systems
By the end of November 1998, these efforts had started to bear fruit and there were 833 listed companies on the Egyptian Stock Exchange with a market capitalization of approximately L.E. 71.3 billion (up from 627 companies listed in 1991 with a market capitalization of L.E. 8.8 billion).

Budapest Stock Exchange

The Budapest Stock Exchange (BSE) was re-opened in 1990[1] with headquarters in Budapest, Hungary.
BSE is the key institution of the Hungarian Financial market and the official trading venue for publicly offered securities.
The exchange has pre-market sessions from 08:30am to 09:00am and normal trading sessions from 09:00am to 04:30pm on all days of the week except Saturdays, Sundays and holidays declared by the Exchange in advance

Bucharest Stock Exchange

The Bucharest Stock Exchange (Bursa de Valori Bucureşti in Romanian) is a stock exchange in Bucharest, capital of Romania. On December 1, 2005, Bucharest's electronic over-the-counter stock market, Rasdaq, was merged with the Bucharest Stock Exchange.
The total capitalisation of the Bucharest Stock Exchange is around 55 bn $ and the capitalisation of Rasdaq is around 9 bn$.

Bombay Stock Exchange

The Stock Exchange, Mumbai; popularly called The Bombay Stock Exchange, or BSE) has the greatest number of listed companies in the world, with 4700 listed as of August 2007. It is located at Dalal Street, Mumbai, India. On 31 December 2007, the equity market capitalization of the companies listed on the BSE was US$ 1.79 trillion, making it the largest stock exchange in South Asia and the 12th largest in the world.

Lima Stock Exchange

The Bolsa de Valores de Lima (BVL) is the stock exchange of Peru, situated in the capital Lima. It has several indices. The IGBVL (Indice General Bolsa de Valores) is a value-weighted index that tracks the performance of the largest and most actively traded stocks on the Lima Exchange

Mexican Stock Exchange

The Mexican Stock Exchange (in Spanish: Bolsa Mexicana de Valores, BMV) is Mexico's only stock exchange. It is headquartered on the prestigious Paseo de la Reforma in central Mexico City. It is the second largest stock exchange in the Latin America. The total value of the Mexican Stock Exchange is estimated to be over US $600 billion

Bermuda Stock Exchange

The Bermuda Stock Exchange (BSX), established in 1971, is now the world’s leading fully electronic offshore securities market, with a current market capitalization (excluding mutual funds) in excess of US$300[citation needed] billion. Approximately 400 securities are listed on the BSX, of which almost 300 are offshore funds and alternative investment structures. As of 31 December 2007, the BSX had 53 listed companies with a combined market capitalization of $2.4 billion

Belgrade Stock Exchange

Belgrade Stock Exchange was first founded on November 21, 1894 and it functioned until the breakout of World War II in Yugoslavia. It officially began trading on January 2, 1895 in the Hotel Bosna building. In 1953 it was formally closed as the stock exchange did not fit the new socialist economy of the country.
It was reopened in 1989 as the Yugoslavian Capital Market, but after the breakup of the country it was renamed back to Belgrade Stock Exchange. In 2001 large scale privatization began and the Stock Exchange started trading privatized stock. A year later, trade with bonds of the Republic of Serbia started as well.
In September 2004, Belgrade Stock Exchange was accepted into the Federation of Euro-Asian Stock Exchanges.

Athens Stock Exchange

The Athens Exchange or ATHEX (Greek: Χρηματιστήριο Αθηνών or ΧΑ) is a stock exchange located in Athens, Greece. It was first opened in 1876. Athens Exchange is a subsidiary of Hellenic Exchanges S.A., whose shares are listed in ATHEX. In August 1999 the derivatives market started operating, and in 2002 the Athens Stock Exchange and the Athens Derivatives Exchange merged to form Athens Exchange. Until 2007, it was located in Psiris, Sofocleous Street, near the city centre of Athens. For this reason the Exchange and Sofocleous St became synonymous. Now it resides in its new headquarters designed by Babis Vovos Constructions at 110 Athinon Street also called Kavalas Street. The exchange has normal trading sessions from 10:00am to 05:20pm on all days of the week except Saturdays, Sundays and holidays declared by the Exchange in advance

American Stock Exchange

NYSE Alternext U.S., formerly known as the American Stock Exchange (AMEX) is an American stock exchange situated in New York. AMEX was a mutual organization, owned by its members. Until 1953 it was known as the New York Curb Exchange. On January 17, 2008 NYSE Euronext announced it would acquire the American Stock Exchange for $260 million in stock. On October 1, 2008, NYSE Euronext completed acquisition of the American Stock Exchange. Before the closing of the acquisition, NYSE Euronext announced that the Exchange will be integrated with Alternext European small-cap exchange and renamed NYSE Alternext U.S.

National Stock Exchange (NSE)

The National Stock Exchange (NSE), located in Bombay, is India's first debt market. It was set up in 1993 to encouragestock exchange reform through system modernization and competition. It opened for trading in mid-1994. It was recently accorded recognition as a stock exchange by the Department of Company Affairs. The instruments traded are, treasury bills, government security and bonds issued by public sector companies.

The number of members trading on the exchange has been on a steady increase, helping integrate the national market and providing a modern system with a complete audit trail of all transactions.

Stock Prices: Income vs. Growth

The price of an income stock tends to stay fairly flat. That is, from year to year, the price of the stock tends to remain about the same unless profits (and therefore dividends) go up. People are getting their money each year and the business is not growing. This would be the case for stock in a single restaurant that distributes all of its profits to the shareholders each year.

Let's say that the single restaurant decides, for several years, to save its profits, and eventually it opens a second restaurant. That is the behavior of a growth company. The value of the stock rises because, when the second restaurant opens, there is twice as much equipment and twice as much profit being earned by the company. In a growth stock, the shareholders do not get a yearly dividend, but they own a company whose value is increasing. Therefore, the shareholders can get more money when they sell their shares -- someone buying the stock would see the increasing book value of the company (the value of the buildings, equipment, etc.) and the increasing profit that the company is earning and, based on these factors, pay a higher price for the stock.

In a publicly traded company, all of the financial information about the company is public. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is in charge of collecting this information and making it available to investors. Shareholders also use a number of other indicators to determine how much a stock is worth. One simple indicator is the price/earnings ratio. This is the price of the stock divided by the earnings per share. There are all sorts of indicators like these, as well as a great deal of other financial information available on any stock. You can look up all of it on the Web in thousands of different places -- see the links at the end of this article for details.

Stock Prices

Let's say that a new corporation is created and in its IPO it raises $20 million by selling one million shares for $20 a share. The corporation buys its equipment and hires its employees with that money. In the first year, when all the income and expenses are added up, the company makes a profit of $1 million. The board of directors of the company can decide to do a number of things with that $1 million:

It could put it in the bank and save it for a rainy day.
It could decide to give all of the profits to its shareholders, so it would declare a dividend of $1 per share.
It could use the money to buy more equipment and hire more employees to expand the company.
It could pick some combination of these three options.
­If a company traditionally pays out most its profits to its shareholders, it is generally called an income stock. The shareholders get income from the company's profits. If the company puts most of the money back into the business, it is called a growth stock. The company is trying to grow larger by increasing the amount of equipment and the number of people who run it.

Shareholders

­From this description, you can see that a corporation has a group of owners -- the shareholders. The owners elect a board of directors to make the company's major decisions. The owners of a corporation become owners by buying shares of stock in the corporation. The board of directors decides how many total shares there will be. For example, a company might have one million shares of stock. The company can either be privately held or publicly held. In a privately held company, the shares of stock are owned by a small number of people who probably all know one another. They buy and sell their shares amongst themselves. A publicly held company is owned by thousands of people who trade their shares on a public stock exchange.

One of the big reasons why corporations exist is to create a structure for collecting lots of investment dollars in a business. Let's say that you would like to start your own airline. Most people cannot do this, because an airplane costs millions of dollars. An airline needs a whole fleet of planes and other equipment, plus it has to hire a lot of employees. A person who wants to start an airline will therefore form a corporation and sell stock in order to collect the money needed to get started.

A corporation is an easy way to gather large quantities of investment capital -- money from investors. When a corporation first sells stock to the public, it does so in an IPO (Initial Public Offering). The company might sell one million shares of stock at $20 a share to raise $20 million very quickly (that is a simplification -- the brokerage house in charge of the IPO will extract its fee from the $20 million, but let's ignore that here). The company then invests the $20 million in equipment and employees. The investors (the shareholders who bought the $20 million in stock) hope that with the equipment and employees, the company will make a profit and pay a dividend.

Another reason that corporations exist is to limit the liability of the owners to some extent. If the corporation gets sued, it is the corporation that pays the settlement. The corporation may go out of business, but that is the worst that can happen. If you are a sole proprietor who owns a restaurant and the restaurant gets sued, you are the one who is being sued. "You" and "the restaurant" are the same thing. If you lose the suit then you, personally, can lose everything you own in the process.

How Stocks and the Stock Market Work

­The stock market appears in the news every day. You hear about it any time it reaches a new high or a new low, and you also hear about it daily in statements like "The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 2 percent today, with advances leading declines by a margin of..."

Obviously, stocks and the stock market are important, but you may find that you know very little about them. What is a stock? What is a stock market? Why do we need a stock market? Where does the stock come from to begin with, and why do people want to buy and sell it? If you have questions like these, then this article will open your eyes to a whole new world!

Calculating Your Net Worth

Now that you've gathered all the information about your own assets and liabilities, you may find the next part easy. You'll simply need to add up all of the amounts listed under assets, and separately, add up all of the amounts listed under liabilities. You should end up with two numbers: a grand total of assets and a grand total of liabilities. Finally, subtract the total liabilities from the total assets -- and, voila! You have your net worth.

The formula can be expressed simply as:

Net worth = assets - liabilities

Assets and Liabilities

Your net worth is a snapshot of your finances. The picture will change slightly the next time you pay a bill and again, the next time you receive a paycheck. To determine your current magic number, the first step is to take a look at all of your assets, which are anything of value that you own. Make a list of all these items and next to each, list the amount it's worth. These typically include:

Cash -- any physical currency and coins you have
Funds in the bank -- all the money you have in a savings, checking, or money market accounts, and any certificates of deposit (CDs)
Stocks, bonds and mutual funds: also list savings bonds
Retirement accounts -- includes 401(k) funds, IRAs and any other retirement accounts
Life insurance -- counting any cash value you have in the policy
Motor Vehicles: the current blue book value of any cars, motorcycles, boats, RVs, etc.
Real Estate -- the current market value of property (house, condo, land, etc.) you own, even if you have a mortgage
Personal Valuables -- including the market value of jewelry, collectibles (from baseball cards to art) and furniture
Money you're owed -- as long as you have a reasonable expectation of being paid back

How to Determine Your Net Worth

­When you were younger, did you ever wonder if you'd amount to anything? Although it may be hard to quantify your true worth, it's easy to quantify your finances. If you've never done it before, perhaps it's time to take inventory and find out exactly how much you're worth. Calculating your net worth will give you an accurate picture of where you stand financially.
Net worth is a single amount representing how much money a person would have if he sold all of his assets and paid off his debts. Unless you plan on shedding yourself of every material thing in your life right now and starting anew, you probably won't ever act out this scenario. So, why consider it at all? If you have any financial plans for the future -- say, buying a house, sending a kid through college or retiring -- it's especially important to know your current financial state. As the saying goes, you never know how to get somewhere unless you know where you are right now. Knowing your net worth helps you make better decisions on how to accomplish your financial goals.

Determining your net worth involves taking a good hard look at all aspects of your finances -- the good, the bad and the ugly. This means that you may not come out ahead when all is said and done. Prepare yourself for the possibility that the final number will be negative. A negative net worth means that you owe more than you own. A hefty mortgage, student loans or steep credit card debt could send you down into negative territory. But, take heart; there are several avenues out of debt that we'll discuss later.

Determining Value

Let's say that you want to start a business, and you decide to open a restaurant. You go out and buy a building, buy all the kitchen equipment, tables and chairs that you need, buy your supplies and hire your cooks, servers, etc. You advertise and open your doors.

Let's say that:

You spend $500,000 buying the building and the equipment.
In the first year, you spend $250,000 on supplies, food and the payroll for your employees.
At the end of your first year, you add up all of the money you have received from customers and find that your total income is $300,000.

MIDDLE EAST

Beirut Stock Exchange
Beirut Stock Exchange -- another site. Perhaps the official one.
Amman Stock Exchange
Bahrain Stock Exchange
Kuwait stock prices
Kuwait Stock Exchange
TelAviv Stock Exchange
Globes' Israel Business Arena and Stock Market
Palestine Securities Exchange
Tehran Stock Exchange
Istanbul Stock Exchange
Cairo and Alexandria Stock Exchanges
Muscat Securities Market (Sultanate of Oman).

WESTERN EUROPE and UK

Irish Stock Exchange London Stock Exchange and AIM Market OFEX and PLUS OFEX is the UK's independent market focused on small and medium enterprises from around the world and PLUS is an equity market based on the quote-driven equity trading system, for listed and unlisted securities. London Securities and Deriviatives Exchange (OMGROUP) Channel Islands Stock Exchange TradePoint Stock Exchange in the UK. European Market Indexes from FINIX Euronext Paris, Amsterdam, Lisbon, Brussels exchages plus Liffe Data. EASDAQ -- Based in Belgium, this exchange was created to assist growing companies with international aspirations. Its members are banks and brokerages in the member states of the European Union.
Luxembourg Stock Exchange Bolsa de Madrid - Stock Exchange Bolsa de Barcelona - Stock Exchange La Borsa Valoria Italiana. (This site in English.) Viennese Stock Exchange (formed from the merged Viennese Stock Exchange and Austrian Options & Futures Exchange) Goethe Investment Society at Frankfurt University has information on, and links to, German and Austrian securities markets, as well as others. A lot of this is in German. Hamburg Exchange. Berlin-Bremen Exhange. German Exchange Group (Deutsche Börse Group) in English and German. Swissquote.com -- Real time Swiss stock quotes, and more.. Swissinvest -- Stock Quotes, information on Swiss-based Companies, Financial Services, and Products, Investment Opportunities, and more.. Geneva (Swiss) Stock Exchange SWX Swiss Stock Exchange World Box provides info. on public companies in Switzerland and Liechtenstein Macedonian Stock Exchange Athens, Greece Stock Exchange Cyprus Stock Exchange

SOUTH AMERICA

Center for Latin American Capital Markets
Bolsa Electronica de Chile
Bolsa de Comercio de Santiogo, Chile
Bolsa de Valores de Sao Paulo, Brazil
Bolsa de Valores de Rio De Janeiro, Brazil
Bolsa de Caracas, Venezuela
Bolsa de Bogota, Colombia
Bolsa de Comercio de Guyaquil, Equador
Bolsa de Valores de Lima, Peru
Bolsa de Comercio de Buenos Aires
Bolsa de Valores Nacional S.A. Guatemala

CENTRAL AMERICA

Center for Latin American Capital Markets
Bolsa Mexicana de Valores.
Costa Rica Investment and Development Board
Bolsa de Valores Nicaragua

CARRIBEAN

Jamaican Stock Exchange
Investment Incentives in the Bahamas
Bermuda Stock Exchange
Cayman Islands Stock Exchange
Trinidad and Tobago Stock Exchange
Cuban Stock Exchange Obviously, not a real exhange. This company buys, sells and trades stocks, bonds and currency from Cuba at their sister site, CyberCuba. The securities listed are valued mainly as collectibles suitable for framing and display.

CANADA

Carlson Online Services - Although we've listed all the Canadian stock exchanges along with the US ones on our domestic stock market page, you might like to take a look at Carlson's site which gives you a lot of data on those markets.

STOCK EXCHANGES & NATIONAL INVESTMENT INFORMATION CENTERS

After the listing of stock exchanges & related servers (organzied by geographic area) are the more general links to international investing, such as lists of ADRs, foreign market indexes and "The Economist's" websites. Following that is a list of brokerages which want your business in trading stocks internationally. Last are links to a related topic -- offshore business and banking.
Some of these links do not access well or take a long time. Please be patient.
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WORLDWIDE (Note: Quotes for specific countries and regions are listed below.)
World Federation of Exchanges -- the trade organization for regulated securities and derivative markets, settlement institutions and related clearing houses, and their diverse services to capital markets.
World Stock Markets Closing Numbers from CNN-FN
NZZ Online.
FTSE Indices
MATIF data and statistics

INFORMATION ON ETFs:

The easiest way for Americans to start investing globally is to invest in the burgeoning number of foreign ETFs. You can find an ETF for many countries, regions and economic sectors. MSN Money has a list of all ETFs, including foreign ones. Stock-Encylopedia has a list of global ETFs.

INFORMATION ON ADRs:

List of ADR's at Bank of New York site
ADR.com See chart at right. BLDRS Emerging Markets 50 ADR Index Fund (ADRD) is a unit investment trust designed to provide investment results that correspond generally to the price and yield performance of the publicly traded depositary receipts comprising The Bank of New York Emerging Markets 50 ADR Index. S & P's Global 100 Index ETF (IOO) and the MSCI EAFE Index Fund (EFA) have been following the same, general pattern as the ADRD.

Money and Markets

"When asked about foreign exchanges, most American stock brokers will offer guarded appreciation while warning of loose financial controls and political, economic, and currency risks. And even if your broker does offer access to foreign stocks, it's likely that they trade through domestic market makers. Typically, these middle men pocket the difference between the bid and offer prices on the thinly-traded U.S. over-the-counter markets. Sometimes the spreads are really wide — as much as 10%! In most cases, investors don't even realize just how much of their money winds up in the pocket of market makers. To avoid these extra costs, seek brokers that have relationships with on-the-ground traders in Sydney, Auckland, Toronto, Singapore, Hong Kong, Tokyo, London, and more. By executing orders directly on foreign exchanges, they can cut out the market maker, and pass the savings on to the customers. Sure, they charge a trading commission, but the net charge is substantially less than going through a market maker. The advantage: You'll be able to buy the kinds of foreign stocks that aren't typically included in global mutual funds or traded on U.S. exchanges as American Depositary Receipts (ADRs)."

NobleTrading.

Global online trading at your fingertips.
Interactive Brokers.
The professional's gateway to the world's markets.

E-Trade.

They have launched their online global trading center with Canada, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, and the United Kingdom.

US BROKERS OFFERING GLOBAL TRADING

Today, most full-service brokers should be able to get stocks for you which are traded only on foreign exchanges. Fees involved may be higher than trading in US stocks. Some brokers are soliciting this kind of trade

The future of stock exchanges

The future of stock trading appears to be electronic, as competition is continually growing between the remaining traditional New York Stock Exchange specialist system against the relatively new, all Electronic Communications Networks, or ECNs. ECNs point to their speedy execution of large block trades, while specialist system proponents cite the role of specialists in maintaining orderly markets, especially under extraordinary conditions or for special types of orders.
The ECNs contend that an array of special interests profit at the expense of investors in even the most mundane exchange-directed trades. Machine-based systems, they argue, are much more efficient, because they speed up the execution mechanism and eliminate the need to deal with an intermediary.
Historically, the 'market' (which, as noted, encompasses the totality of stock trading on all exchanges) has been slow to respond to technological innovation, thus allowing growing pure speculation to continue. Conversion to all-electronic trading could erode/eliminate the trading profits of floor specialists and the NYSE's "upstairs traders", who, like in September and October 2008, earned billions of dollars selling shares they did not have, and days later buying the same amount of shares, but maybe 15 % cheaper, so these shares could be handed to their buyers, thereby making the market fall deeply.
William Lupien, founder of the Instinet trading system and the OptiMark system, has been quoted as saying "I'd definitely say the ECNs are winning... Things happen awfully fast once you reach the tipping point. We're now at the tipping point."
One example of improved efficiency of ECNs is the prevention of front running, by which manual Wall Street traders use knowledge of a customer's incoming order to place their own orders so as to benefit from the perceived change to market direction that the introduction of a large order will cause. By executing large trades at lightning speed without manual intervention, ECNs make impossible this illegal practice, for which several NYSE floor brokers were investigated and severely fined in recent years.[6] Under the specialist system, when the market sees a large trade in a name, other buyers are immediately able to look to see how big the trader is in the name, and make inferences about why s/he is selling or buying. All traders who are quick enough are able to use that information to anticipate price movements.
ECNs have changed ordinary stock transaction processing (like brokerage services before them) into a commodity-type business. ECNs could regulate the fairness of initial public offerings (IPOs), oversee Hambrecht's OpenIPO process, or measure the effectiveness of securities research and use transaction fees to subsidize small- and mid-cap research efforts

Ownership

Stock exchanges originated as mutual organizations, owned by its member stock brokers. There has been a recent trend for stock exchanges to demutualize, where the members sell their shares in an initial public offering. In this way the mutual organization becomes a corporation, with shares that are listed on a stock exchange. Examples are Australian Securities Exchange (1998), Euronext (merged with New York Stock Exchange), NASDAQ (2002), the New York Stock Exchange (2005), Bolsas y Mercados Españoles, and the São Paulo Stock Exchange (2007). The Shenzhen and Shanghai stock exchanges can been characterized as quasi-state institutions insofar as they were created by government bodies in China and their leading personnel are directly appointed by the China Securities Regulatory Commission.

Requirements by stock exchange

Companies have to meet the requirements of the exchange in order to have their stocks and shares listed and traded there, but requirements vary by stock exchange:
Bombay Stock Exchange: Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) has requirements for a minimum market capitalization of Rs.250 Million and minimum public float equivalent to Rs.100 Million.[3]
London Stock Exchange: The main market of the London Stock Exchange has requirements for a minimum market capitalization (£700,000), three years of audited financial statements, minimum public float (25 per cent) and sufficient working capital for at least 12 months from the date of listing.
NASDAQ Stock Exchange: To be listed on the NASDAQ a company must have issued at least 1.25 million shares of stock worth at least $70 million and must have earned more than $11 million over the last three years.[4]
New York Stock Exchange: To be listed on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) a company must have issued at least a million shares of stock worth $100 million and must have earned more than $10 million over the last three years

Facilitating company growth

Companies view acquisitions as an opportunity to expand product lines, increase distribution channels, hedge against volatility, increase its market share, or acquire other necessary business assets. A takeover bid or a merger agreement through the stock market is one of the simplest and most common ways for a company to grow by acquisition or fusion.

Mobilizing savings for investment

When people draw their savings and invest in shares, it leads to a more rational allocation of resources because funds, which could have been consumed, or kept in idle deposits with banks, are mobilized and redirected to promote business activity with benefits for several economic sectors such as agriculture, commerce and industry, resulting in stronger economic growth and higher productivity levels and firms

[edit] The First Stock Exchanges

In 11th century France the courtiers de change were concerned with managing and regulating the debts of agricultural communities on behalf of the banks. As these men also traded in debts, they could be called the first brokers.
Some stories suggest that the origins of the term "bourse" come from the Latin bursa meaning a bag because, in 13th century Bruges, the sign of a purse (or perhaps three purses), hung on the front of the house where merchants met.

Stock exchange

A stock exchange, securities exchange or (in Europe) bourse is a corporation or mutual organization which provides "trading" facilities for stock brokers and traders, to trade stocks and other securities. Stock exchanges also provide facilities for the issue and redemption of securities as well as other financial instruments and capital events including the payment of income and dividends. The securities traded on a stock exchange include: shares issued by companies, unit trusts and other pooled investment products and bonds. To be able to trade a security on a certain stock exchange, it has to be listed there. Usually there is a central location at least for recordkeeping, but trade is less and less linked to such a physical place, as modern markets are electronic networks, which gives them advantages of speed and cost of transactions. Trade on an exchange is by members only. The initial offering of stocks and bonds to investors is by definition done in the primary market and subsequent trading is done in the secondary market. A stock exchange is often the most important component of a stock market. Supply and demand in stock markets is driven by various factors which, as in all free markets, affect the price of stocks (see stock valuation).
There is usually no compulsion to issue stock via the stock exchange itself, nor must stock be subsequently traded on the exchange. Such trading is said to be off exchange or over-the-counter. This is the usual way that bonds are traded. Increasingly, stock exchanges are part of a global market for securities.