ABSTRACT
The Stock Exchange is a meeting place for buyers and sellers of securities, providing a secondary market where investors are assured they can resell shares they have purchased either in a new company or in an existing company. The Stock Exchange itself, with the 46-strong Council, supervises activity on the floors of the London, Birmingham, Dublin, Liverpool, and Manchester exchanges and lays down precise rules about the relationships between its members and the investing public. The big institutions tend to concentrate on the top 100 or 200 quoted companies on the Stock Exchange, largely because of the need for marketability. This, coupled with the pressure of taxation and inflation, has made it increasingly difficult for small firms to raise the necessary financial backing, especially through the stock market. The danger is that the stock market as people know it might disappear just as investors, big and small, seem to be getting a cheaper and cheaper service.
