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Australian Securities Exchange - Background Information

The Australian Securities Exchange, or the ASX, is the primary Australian Exchange. It started as state based, separate exchanges, established back in 1861. Nowadays, trading is done electronically and the Exchange serves as apublically listed company. The exchangr was derived from the merging of the Sydney Futures Exchange and the Australian Stock Exchange, and became the worlds 9th biggest stock exchange in December 2006.

The largest traded sectors are financial services, commodities, and listed property trusts. The main market index is the S&P/ASX 200. It's a top 200 index of shares in the ANX which replaces the All Ordinaries Index, which still runs alongside the S&P ASX 200. The S&P/ASX 100 and S&P/ASX 50 are also quoted indexes on the exchange.

As a publically listed company, the ASX shared can be traded on the exchange. As a safeguard, there is a restriction to the number of shares a particular holdings can acquire. Although listed on the exchange, the ASX cannot regulate itself, this task is left to the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC).

Australian Securities Exchange
- Location & Contact Information

HeadQuarters
20 Bridge Street
Sydney
NSW
2000

Tel: 131 ASX (131 279)
Int. Tel: +61 2 9338 0000
Fax: 02 9227 0885

The Australian Securities Exchange - History

The exchange was established in 1861, Melbourne and developed as six independent exchanges including (1861), Sydney (1871), Hobart (1882), Brisbane (1884), Adelaide (1887) and Perth (1889).

The first ever conference was held in 1903. It was held during the Melbourne Cup and was the first time the six exchanges got together for talks. This continued through to 1937 until they established the when the Australian Associated Stock Exchanges (AASE), nominating one representative from each exchange. As the years developed, a common set of rules were put in place.

Back then all Trade was conducted using the call system. An exchange employee shouted out company names, then brokers could either bid or make an offer.

Moving on to the 1960's, the exchanges now used a post system. This was when employees, informally known as chalkies continially wrote their bids and offers on a blackboard, they also kept a record of all transactions.

Australian Options Market was opened in 1976, and traded call options.

In 1984 there was a breakthrough for internet based traders due to the deregulation of brokers commission rates. commission rates are now at their lowest ever.

The all-ectronic SEATS trading system was intoducted in 1987. During it's beta stage, only a small number of stocks were added, but by 1990 all trading floors were closed for business and full integration took place, the same year the warrants market was introduced.

As we continue on to 1993, the FAST system of accelerated settlement was introduced, another addition was fixed interest securities.

Individual ASX futures were added to the Sydney Futures Exchange. In response, the ASX introduced the Low Exercise Price Option, this was implimented in 1995, the same year stamp duty was halved. The introduction of the GST in 2000, saw the end to all stamp duty.

The deriritives, electronic CLICK system was eased in during 1997 and by 2006, ASX merged with the primary derivatives exchange in Australia, the Sydney Futures Exchange.

The Australian Securities Exchange - Trading Hours

Pre-Market Session:
07:00am to 10:00am

AEST and a Normal Trading Session:
10:00am to 04:00pm AEST

Website: Australian Securities Exchange