World Share Market

A comprehensive study on the world share market, also known as the world stock exchange, gives an idea of the business and trade going on at international level, and also on the economic condition of the corresponding country.
A share market indicates a market where the trading of company shares, stocks, and bonds take place on a large scale along with issuing and redemption of the securities and other financial instruments. Shares offered by companies and pooled investment products-like unit trusts and bonds- are the securities that are generally traded in share markets.

In order to trade certain security in the market, the security has to be listed in it.

The twenty largest stock exchanges by market capitalization as listed on July 12, 2007 by the World Federation of Exchanges are:

Stock Exchange	Market Capitalization (in trillion USD)
NYSE Euronext	$20.692
Tokyo Stock Exchange	$4.679
NASDAQ	$4.163
London Stock Exchange	$4.023
Hong Kong Stock Exchange	$2.124
Toronto Stock Exchange	$1.985
Frankfurt Stock Exchange (Deutsche Borse)	$1.973
Shanghai Stock Exchange	$1.738
Madrid Stock Exchange (BME Spanish Exchanges)	$1.515
Australian Securities Exchange	$1.324
Swiss Exchange	$1.318
Nordic Stock Exchange Group OMX (Copenhagen, Helsinki, Iceland, Stockholm, Tallinn, Riga and Vilnius Stock Exchanges)	$1.296
Milan Stock Exchange (Borsa Italiana)	$1.123
Bombay Stock Exchange	$1.005
Korea Exchange	$1.001
Sao Paulo Stock Exchange	$0.981
National Stock Exchange of India	$0.962
Moscow Interbank Currency Exchange	$0.86 (January 2007)
Johannesburg Securities Exchange	$0.802
Taiwan Stock Exchange	$0.610

Source: World Federation of Exchanges

World share market participants range from small individual stock investors to large-scale hedge fund investors. One type of share market may include traders going for verbal bids, while the other may be virtual, where a network of computers trade via electronic

servers. Over the last couple of years, following an immense growth on electronic communication, the virtual share market is now growing phenomenally; the advantage being the cost-effectiveness and speed of transactions.

Some major roles of world share markets are:

• Raising capital for companies
• Facilitating company growth
• Mobilizing Savings for Investment
• Corporate governance
• Redistribution of wealth
• Acting as a barometer of the economy
• Government capital-raising for development projects
• Creating investment opportunities for small investors

Share Market originated in USA in the early 18th century. Shares gave an ownership right to its holders and also are a source of money making for them along with the growing of the company concerned. Congress met on Wall Street in 1789 for authorizing issue of government bonds for financing the war costs. Businessmen of Wall Street regularly traded stocks and bonds among themselves and used to leave their securities with the auctioneers. The Auctioneer used to get a commission on every selling of the stocks and bonds. The need of an organized stock exchange arose along with the increase in the number of stocks and bonds.