Founding of Australian Securities Exchange

The Australian Securities Exchange is the country's principal stock market and one of the main exchanges in the Asia-Pacific region. It was created by merging the separate stock exchanges that had operated in the state capitals, each of which had grown independently since the gold rushes of the nineteenth century, including those in Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, Brisbane, Hobart and Perth. The unified exchange was based in Sydney and made trading national. It became a listed company itself in 1998, and in 2006 it merged with the Sydney Futures Exchange, adding derivatives trading. The ASX lists many of the world's largest mining and banking companies, reflecting the structure of Australia's economy.

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