Business Visit #3-Istanbul Stock Exchange

We traveled to the Istanbul Stock Exchange (ISE) and were able to visit the trading floor during a trading session. The ISE is the only corporation in Turkey for securities exchange established to provide trading in equities, bonds, and bills, revenue sharing certificates, private sector bonds, foreign securities and real estate certificates as well as international securities. ISE  is a non-profit and was founded as an autonomous professional organization in early 1986. It was interesting to see children’s art and school work in the building. The commissions and revenue generated by the ISE is utilized to fund the building of new schools throughout Turkey.

 It is located in the building complex in the quarter of Istinye which is on the European side of Istanbul.

ISE is home to over 300 listed national companies. Unlike within the United States, the ISE has two trading sessions and the market has two opening and two closing prices each trading day. The Trading hours are 09:30 AM -12:30 PM for the first session and 2:00 PM-5:30 PM for the second session, on workdays. All ISE members are incorporated banks and brokerage houses that pay for their seat within the ISE via an auction.

ISE price indices are computed and published throughout the trading session while the return indices are calculated and published at the close of the session only. The indices are: ISE National-All Shares Index, ISE National-30, ISE National-50, ISE National-100, Sector and sub-sector indices, ISE Second National Market Index, ISE New Economy Market Index and ISE Investment Trusts Index. The ISE National-100 Index contains both the ISE National-50 and ISE National-30 Index and is used as a main indicator of the national market.

There is a statue outside of the exchange that commemorates the stock traders that lost their lives while working on the trading floor, usually due to high stress and negative market volatility. It is interesting to note since over 90% of the trading existing electronically the rate of deaths has dramatically declined, from when they used boards and manually wrote buy, sell orders on the boards with markers.


Sources: 
http://www.ise.org
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Istanbul_Stock_Exchange