Nordic Stock Exchange Group
Over the years it has become fairly common for stock exchanges to merge themselves together. In Northern Europe this has resulted in all of the exchanges in the Nordic and the Baltic countries being merged into one. The result is the Nordic Stock Exchange Group which controls eight different stock markets. They are all fairly small markets by world standard but by combining their resources they have been able to make themselves into major players on the world stage.
The Nordic Stock Exchange Group operates eight different stock exchanges throughout the Nordic countries as well as the Baltic countries. In fact they control all of the largest stock exchanges in the region. The group started in the eighties when a futures exchange was founded to introduce options to Sweden. Eventually this exchange grew to the point where it took over the Stockholm Stock exchange. This was followed by the Helsinki Stock Exchange and then a whole series of others. In 2007 they even moved out of their normal geographic area by taking over the Armenian Stock Exchange. While none of these stock exchanges are particularly large when combined they do represent a fairly big market cap.
With eight different stock exchanges in the group it is hard to draw any generalizations about the Nordic Stock Exchange Group. The companies that exist in places like Sweden and Finland include some very large and successful companies, many of them in the high tech field. The Baltic countries on the other hand are very much emerging markets. This allows for a wide range of investment options that you wouldn't be able to get otherwise if the exchanges hadn't been merged.
Although none of the Nordic Stock Exchange Group's exchanges are particularly big there is one area in which they are world leader. That is in financial trading systems, the computers that control the transactions. The group sells this technology to many other stock exchanges and they are the biggest player in the world for this. What they mainly provide is computer systems that act as central depositories and as clearinghouses. This is basically the housekeeping that has to be done when trades are made to make sure that they go through and that they are recorded properly. This is a large growth area so there is lots of potential here for the group.
The Nordic Stock Exchange Group is likely to become more and more important in the future, but not as big as forex trading. A lot of the companies that are traded in these markets are in the high tech sector and the natural resources sector. These are areas that are going to become more and more important as time goes by. This growing importance will start to attract more and more investors to the regions of Northern Europe as they look for ways to increase their earnings. This is clearly good news for the Nordic Stock Exchange Group.