About The Shanghai Stock Exchange
The Shanghai Stock Exchange or SSE is a not-for-profit organization that formed in the late nineties. The China Securities Regulatory Commission regulates this membership-based body. The Shanghai Stock Exchange aims to make the marketplace transparent and secure and trading more efficient.
The main functions of the Shanghai Stock Exchange include providing a venue as well as the facilities for securities trading; developing rules for business; accepting and setting up listings; surveillance of the market; monitoring of securities trading; regulating individual and corporate members; managing and distributing information about the market.
In the Shanghai Stock Exchange, Class A shares are limited to local investors but domestic and international investors alike can trade class B shares. The Shanghai Stock Exchange trades government and corporate bonds as well as convertible bonds. Class B shares are traded between 9:30 am-11:30 am and 1:00 pm-3:00 pm, from Monday to Friday.
The modern trading system of Shanghai Stock Exchange is paperless or automated. It uses a sophisticated computer system that matches orders instantly based on principles known as "price precedence" and "time precedence". The daily maximum capacity of the Shanghai Stock Exchange's trading system is close to 30 million trade executions and twice this volume for transactions, all at the speed of over ten thousand transactions every second.
Members can send orders to the Shanghai Stock Exchange's trading system via terminals on the SSE's floor or on the offices of the members. The trading floor of the Shanghai Stock Exchange is 3,600 square meters, which makes it Asia Pacific's largest. It is supported by state-of-the-art communication systems, both optical and satellite, which allow it to perform domestic and international transactions in real time.
The largest stocks in the Shanghai Stock Exchange include those of China's five large banks - Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, the China Life Insurance, the Bank of China, the China Merchants Bank and the Shanghai Pudong Development Bank. Also included in the top largest stocks traded in the Shanghai Stock Exchange are those of Sinopec, Shanghai International Port, Baosteel, Daqin Railway and CITIC Securities.
The Shanghai Stock Exchange is considered mainland China's most significant stock market because it has the most number of companies listed, has the most listed shares, and greatest market value. The Shanghai Stock Exchange has more than 800 listed companies as of the end of 2004 and over 35 million investors. Many of its member companies from major industries have not only increased capital but also enhanced their operational processes by becoming listed on the stock market of Shanghai.
