Frankfurt, one of the world's first stock exchanges, became a leader among eight German stock exchanges already in the middle of the 20th century by serving 90% of the German market today. From 1993, the blue-chip company Deutsche B�rse AG is an operator of the Frankfurt Stock Exchange (FSE).
With more than 77,000 securities listed and 260,000 trades processed daily, Frankfurt Stock Exchange takes the position of the world's third largest stock market and the world's sixth largest by market capitalization. It has a total turnover of 5.2 Trillion � per year.
Although FSE exercises some traditional broker-supported floor trading, most of the trading is done via the fully electronic trading system Xetra that enables 15 countries trading on a single platform. With the location-independent system, even 47% of the FSE's market participants come from abroad.
Currently about 6823 companies are quoted on the FSE. Based on stock market newcomers' needs and requirements, they can enter the market in 3 alternative ways: Prime, General, or Entry Standard. Companies going public by Prime and General Standards are regulated by the EU rules. Whereas companies choosing the Entry Standard, which is one of the easiest ways to enter the capital market, are supervised by the stock exchange itself.
With current 79 index funds, FSE has the largest range of exchange traded funds in Europe. An investor has a choice of 55 passively managed index funds and 24 actively managed funds to trade in. Unlike classical funds, the prices of the FSE's exchange traded funds are determined every minute in continuous trading and orders are exercised immediately.
