One continent - one stock market?

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One continent - one stock market?

A single European currency should mean a single market for capital. That may create an opening for a borderless stock exchange such as Easdaq. But Europe's national exchanges don't plan to fade away. Their survival strategies are based on cross-border alliances and new technology. Their secret weapon, though, may be sheer momentum. James Rutter reports.

Measuring up the euro-indices

A scattered approach to settlement


The future structure of Europe's equity market is up for grabs. No-one knows exactly how equity is going to be traded after Emu, how investors are going to behave or where liquidity will concentrate. All they know is that the euro-zone market is going to be big - second only to the US - and is likely to get bigger. For stock exchanges the race is on to create the platform from which euro equities will be traded.


It is widely acknowledged that today's fragmented market, with 28 national stock exchanges enjoying virtual domestic monopolies, cannot survive. "It's a bit of a dinosaur problem," says Stanislas Yassukovich, chairman of Easdaq, the pan-European market for high-growth companies. "A good many national exchanges are redundant. But we know how vested interests can dig their heels in." It took a direct hit from a comet to see off the dinosaurs. Yassukovich is hoping Emu will be similarly devastating for national exchanges.


Easdaq is attempting to build a European equivalent of Nasdaq, a market without a physical location that ignores national boundaries and interests. Major European exchanges have responded to the threat from Easdaq with their own market for growth companies, EuroNM.




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