This is the VOA Special English Economics Report.
The NYSE Group and Euronext hope to create the world's largest
financial exchange group by the end of March. Their shareholders voted last
month to approve a plan to combine the two exchange operators.
The proposed 14 billion dollar deal will create the first trans-Atlantic
stock exchange. American and European government officials must still approve
the merger plan.
The new group, to be called NYSE Euronext, will have a combined market value
of about 27 billion dollars. The deal has been developing since June.
The New York Stock Exchange is the world's biggest stock market. Euronext is
Europe's leading international exchange. It operates the stock markets in
Amsterdam, Brussels, Lisbon and Paris.
Germany's Deutsche Borse withdrew its own offer for Euronext in November.
Financial markets have grown increasingly international and competitive. The
planned merger of Euronext and the NYSE Group is a good example of this new
climate.
Euronext is itself the product of mergers. The Amsterdam, Brussels and Paris
exchanges joined in 2000 to create Euronext. It was first traded publicly
in 2001, and has since added other exchanges in Lisbon and London.
In the past, stock markets were organized unlike the companies they listed.
Now many financial markets operate as publicly traded businesses. That means
they must answer to their own shareholders.
The New York Stock Exchange was a nonprofit organization that was largely
self-supervising. Then, last March, the NYSE Group was formed as a publicly
traded company. That happened when the Big Board combined with the electronic
trading exchange Archipelago Holdings.
The Chicago Mercantile Exchange became the first publicly traded exchange in
the United States at the end of 2002.
Some markets have sought to buy or link with other exchanges. These deals
have created bigger markets, often selling highly complex financial products.
Bigger markets offer more liquidity -- investors have a greater chance of
selling quickly if needed.
NYSE Euronext will trade not only stocks but options, futures, bonds and
more. Total value of the listed companies? About 26 trillion dollars.
The stock prices of the NYSE Group and Euronext both doubled last year. This
has other big exchanges considering deals of their own.
And that's the VOA Special English Economics Report, written by Mario Ritter.
I'm Steve Ember.
NYSE : New York Stock
Exchange（紐約證券交易所）
Euronext : 歐洲交易所
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