The role of the Exchange

The London Stock Exchange enables companies from around the world to raise money from outside investors. Its main aim is to provide attractive, efficient and well-regulated markets for companies, investors and intermediaries, such as stockbrokers.

The Exchange is one of the world’s oldest stock exchanges and can trace its history back to the coffee houses of 17th century London. For many decades, the Exchange provided a trading floor where members of the Exchange could buy and sell shares. Today, share trading is almost entirely done through computers and the Exchange offers this service with state-of-the-art systems that can process over a million trades every single day.

The Exchange is not only one of the oldest exchanges in the world, it is also one of the most prestigious, supplying high-quality prices, news and other information to the financial community, not just in the UK but across the world.

The Exchange sends data to over 100,000 terminals in more than 100 countries. This data varies from live share prices to financial announcements, made via the Regulatory Information Services.

For investors, the London Stock Exchange provides access to the shares of thousands of UK and overseas companies, as well as other financial securities, such as bonds.

For companies, the Exchange provides access to thousands of investors from around the world, ranging from large financial institutions to private individuals.