ABSTRACT
Like the financial sector in general, stock markets tend to concentrate in specific locations: almost every nation has only one leading stock exchange, with the others left far behind. Frankfurt’s stock exchange is synonymous for the German stock market, Paris for the French, London for the British, Tokyo for the Japanese, and so on. In all of the examples, other national stock exchanges have existed or still exist but are of minor importance. At first glance, the USA seems to be an exception, with NASDAQ and Wall Street as two leading stock exchanges. However, a closer look reveals that each has specialized on a specific market seg-
ment (technology-related shares, blue chips) – and that they are the leading stock exchanges in their respective segments by a large margin.
