The Amsterdam Stock Exchange is the former name for the stock exchange based in Amsterdam. It merged on 22 September 2000 with the Brussels Stock Exchange and the Paris Stock Exchange to form Euronext, and is now known as Euronext Amsterdam.

The Amsterdam Stock Exchange is considered the oldest in the world. It was established in 1602 by the Dutch East India Company (Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie, or ‘VOC’) for dealings in its printed stocks and bonds. It was subsequently renamed the Amsterdam Bourse and was the first to formally begin trading in securities.

The European Option Exchange (EOE) was founded in 1978 in Amsterdam as a futures and options exchange. In 1983 it started a stock market index, called the EOE index, consisting of the 25 largest companies that trade on the stock exchange. In 1997 the Amsterdam Stock Exchange and the EOE merged, and its blue chip index was renamed AEX, for ‘Amsterdam Exchange’. It is now managed by Euronext Amsterdam.

Established on the orders of Emperor Louis the German to hold free trade fairs, the Frankfurt Stock Exchange (Frankfurter Wertpapierbörse in German) now known as the Deutsche Börse AG, ranks amongst the best trading centres of securities (stocks, bonds, corporate participating certificates, etc.) in the world today. The third Stock Exchange in the world, founded in 1585 after the Stock Exchanges of London and Paris, the Frankfurt Stock Exchange is managed by Deutsche Börse which owns it along with the European Electronic Exchange – Eurex and the clearing company Clearstream.

Possibly the biggest player in the European market with the trading index DAX having risen by a spectacular 21 percent in this current financial year (2007) alone thereby overtaking every other developed market in terms of profits acquired, the Frankfurt Stock Exchange enjoys around 85 percent of the total turnover of the German market.

The major trading index of the Frankfurt Stock Exchange is DAX or DAX 30 (Deutsche Aktien Xchange 30, earlier known as Deutscher Aktien-Index 30). With the prices derived from the global electronic securities trading system -Xetra, DAX or DAX 30 (as the name suggests) is a Blue Chip stock market index comprising of the 30 major German companies enlisted on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange

Euronext N.V. is a pan-European stock exchange based in Paris and with subsidiaries in Belgium, France, Netherlands, Portugal and the United Kingdom. In addition to equities and derivatives markets, the Euronext group provides clearing and information services. As of 31 January 2006, markets run by Euronext had a market capitalisation of US$2.9 trillion, making it the fifth largest exchange on the planet. Euronext merged with NYSE Group to form NYSE Euronext, the ‘first global stock exchange’.

Euronext was formed on 22 September 2000 following a merger of the Amsterdam Stock Exchange, Brussels Stock Exchange, and Paris Bourse, in order to take advantage of the harmonisation of the European Union financial markets. In December 2001, Euronext acquired the shares of the London International Financial Futures and Options Exchange (LIFFE), which continues to operate under its own governance. Beginning in early 2003, all derivatives products traded on its affiliated exchanges trade on LIFFECONNECT, LIFFE’s electronic trading platform. In 2002 the group merged with the Portuguese stock exchange Bolsa de Valores de Lisboa e Porto (BVLP), renamed Euronext Lisbon.

The IBEX 35 (an acronym of Iberia Index) is the benchmark stock market index of the Bolsa de Madrid, Spain’s principal stock exchange. Initiated in 1992, the index is administered and calculated by Sociedad de Bolsas, a subsidiary of Bolsas y Mercados Españoles (BME), the company which runs Spain’s securities markets (including the Bolsa de Madrid). It is a market capitalization weighted index comprising of the 35 most liquid Spanish stocks traded in the Madrid Stock Exchange General Index, which are reviewed twice annually.

As a blue-chip index, the SMI is Switzerland’s key equity index. It represents about 85% of the free-float capitalisation of the Swiss equity market. The SMI comprises the 20 largest and most liquid equities of the SPI. It is also equivalent to the SPI Large. As a price index, the SMI is not adjusted for dividends, but a performance index that takes account of such distributions is available (the SMIC – SMI Cum Dividend).

Because the SMI is considered to be a mirror of the overall Swiss stock market, it is used as the underlying index for numerous derivative financial instruments such as options, futures and index funds (e.g. ETFs).

The SMI was introduced on 30 June 1988 at a baseline value of 1500 points. Its composition is examined once a year. Calculation takes place in real-time: as soon as a new transaction occurs in a security contained in the SMI, an updated index level is calculated and displayed

The EURO STOXX 50 is a stock index of Eurozone stocks designed by STOXX, an index provider owned by Deutsche Börse Group and SIX Group. According to STOXX, its goal is “to provide a blue-chip representation of Supersector leaders in the Eurozone”. It is made up of fifty of the largest and most liquid stocks. The index futures and options on the EURO STOXX 50, traded on Eurex, are among the most liquid such products in Europe and the world.

The EURO STOXX 50 Index is derived from the 19 EURO STOXX regional Super-sector indices and represents the largest super-sector leaders in the Eurozone in terms of free-float market capitalization. The index captures about 60% of the free-float market capitalization of the EURO STOXX Total Market Index (TMI), which in turn covers about 95% of the free-float market capitalization of the represented countries.

The Nikkei 225 more commonly called the Nikkei, is a stock market index for the Tokyo Stock Exchange (TSE). It has been calculated daily by the Nihon Keizai Shimbun (Nikkei) newspaper since 1950. It is a price-weighted index (the unit is yen), and the components are reviewed once a year. Currently, the Nikkei is the most widely quoted average of Japanese equities, similar to the Dow Jones Industrial Average. In fact, it was known as the “Nikkei Dow Jones Stock Average” from 1975 to 1985