Description

Stock exchanges are crucial to the economy of a country. It is actually a mirror image of how an economy is performing over the years. If the Stock Exchange is performing considerably good, economy is on a great path otherwise it is clearly growing at a slow pace growth rate. The past two decades have witnessed dramatic changes in the number, location, and structure of global financial exchanges. The number of new financial exchanges has surged worldwide in countries such as Russia and China, that previously did not have any exchanges as well as in countries with many competing established exchanges and mature domestic financial market. Additionally, new liquidity providers have emerged since 2000 as the Internet provides a low-cost open platform for alternative trading systems to compare with more traditional exchanges. Financial markets, and especially stock markets, have grown considerably in developed and developing countries over the last few decades. In our cover story we have highlighted the evolution of the stock exchanges around the globe particularly the exchanges of the South Asian region.