The London Stock Exchange abbreviated as the LSE is a stock exchange, which is located in London, United Kingdom. It was founded in 1801, and it is one of the biggest stock exchange operations in the world. The London Stock Exchange also has a number of overseas listings and they have a number of British companies’ listing.

The LSE is managed by the London Stock Exchange Group. Its current official campus is situated in the Paternoster Square which is close to St Paul’s Cathedral located in the City of London.

The shares trading in London started with the requirement to fund two major voyages:

• The Muscovy Company’s effort to reach China via the White Sea north of Russia
• The East India Company’s voyage towards India and the east.

Since these companies were not able to fund for these requirements with their already existing funds, these companies raised funds by trading their shares to the merchants, where they provided them with a proportionate profit on the profits which were made.

The same idea caught up with a number of other companies, and by 1695 there were a total of 140 stock companies and share trading commenced in coffee shops and the prices of stocks were published in “The Course of the Exchange and other things in these coffee shops.” However, this trend was not free of scams because a number of brokers were providing with wrong details to promote selling stocks, which triggered the regulation of the stocks trading, where brokers were to be licensed and they took an oath to behave honestly.

On July 20, 1990 a bomb was planted by the IRA, consequently, following this incident a lot of electronic trading was taking place and due to the declining exchange status, this building was closed in 1992.

In July 2004, the London Stock Exchange moved to its current office premises. “The Source” a dynamic sculpture by Grey world marks the architectural specialty of the current office.

The trade timings for the LSE is from 08:00 to 16:30 on working days excluding Saturdays, Sundays and other holidays, which will be mostly declared by the Exchange in advance.

The London Stock Exchange has four important areas which they operated on mainly:

• Equity Markets
• Trading Services
• Market Data information
• Derivatives
• Equity Markets

Facilitates the companies from across the globe to raise capital for their business; On the whole there are four primary markets which are

• Main Market
• Alternative Investment Market (AIM)
• Professional Securities Market (PSM)
• Specialist Fund Market (SFM).
• Trading Services

highly active market where a wide range of securities are traded which consists of including UK and international equities, covered warrants, debt, Exchange Traded Commodities (ETCs), exchange traded funds (ETFs), reits, contracts for difference (CFDs), fixed interest, and depositary receipts.

Market Data Information

The London Stock Exchange gives real-time prices, trading news and other related financial information which will be of utmost use to the global financial community.

Derivatives

Bringing the cash equity and derivatives markets closer together.