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.
window.google_render_ad();
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.