Favourable economic conditions, deregulation and technological innovation contributed to rapid growth in the turnover of most equity markets during the 1980s. Equity trading also became more mobile, moving both from one exchange to another in response to turnover costs and liquidity, and in some cases off-exchange altogether. The internationalisation of equity trading has been facilitated by the liberalisation of capital movements and the growing importance of sophisticated institutional investors, who can invest and trade cross-border with ease.
This article reviews trends in the turnover of the major equity markets over the last two years. It compares turnover in London with that in other major centres, for both domestic and foreign equities. The article also analyses the turnover of different nationalities of equities in London in relation to turnover on their home exchanges, to cast light on changes in the relative attractiveness of the major exchanges.
Global equity turnover: market comparisons