And then there were two

The race is on to create the first truly global equity market which can trade continuously. Ten national stock exchanges recently entered into discussions to create links and establish common trading rules and a central counterparty. They are the Amsterdam, Australian, Brussels, Hong Kong, Mexico, Paris, New York, Sao Paulo, Tokyo and Toronto exchanges. An alliance is predicted in the next three or four months. Set against this project is the iX venture which will merge the London Stock Exchange and Deutsche Börse to create Europe’s largest market (at the end of June Don Cruickshank, LSE chairman, confirmed that integration remains on track for October), its partnership with Nasdaq, the US technology exchange and rival to NYSE, and Nasdaq’s association with Softbank and the Osaka Securities Exchange, Nasdaq Japan. It is likely that the smaller players, of which there are many, will seek to ally themselves with one or other of the two emerging international blocs.