|
Spain Stock Market Exchanges
Spain's four stock market exchanges, located in Madrid,
Barcelona, Bilbao, and Valencia, were also undergoing
accelerated
modernization in the late 1980s. Nevertheless, the
country's
nearly 200 powerful exchange and stock market agents
(agentes
de cambio y bolsa) exercised a monopoly on all equity
transactions, as they had for over a century and a half.
These
agents, who were required to take civil service
examinations and
to perform bureaucratic functions, were government
employees for
all practical purposes, but many of them earned as much as
US$1
million a year.
Under the Securities and Market Reform Act of 1988 (Ley
de
Reforma de Mercado de Valores), stock market operators
were to be
attached to brokerage houses, several dozen of which were
established in 1987 and 1988. These houses either dealt in
shares, and were known as sociedades de valores
(SVs), or
they functioned as brokers to third parties and were
called
agencias de valores (AVs). Other planned changes in
the
stock market system included eliminating fixed
commissions,
establishing a strict regulatory body, and creating
continuous
trading and electronic bookkeeping systems.
Spanish stock markets had traditionally been
notoriously
undercapitalized, and both domestic banks and foreign
interests
had been excluded from their operations. The government's
intention was to make Spain's stock markets more
competitive and
to allow them a greater role in the country's capital
market.
Most major transactions had previously taken place outside
the
stock exchange, but now Spanish banks were to be granted
entry to
the domestic securities market, and foreigners were to be
allowed
access to it on equal terms by 1992. In the interim, the
country's stock markets were being given several years of
breathing space in order to prepare for this challenge.
Data as of December 1988
|
