The Copenhagen Stock Exchange is Denmark's major securities exchange, located in the city of Copenhagen. It is part of the NASDAQ OMX group of stock exchanges, including exchanges in numerous Nordic countries. People trading on the Copenhagen Stock Exchange have easy access to trading in other OMX exchanges, facilitated through an electronic trading system. This promotes economic activity and provides more opportunities for investment and growth.
Some form of financial exchange has been present in Copenhagen since the 1600s, when mercantile exchanges were established to allow people to trade goods, as well as speculate on cargoes. In 1808, the Copenhagen Securities Exchange was founded, and this developed into the Copenhagen Stock Exchange, which was turned into a limited company in the 1990s before joining forces with other Nordic stock exchanges and eventually joining NASDAQ in the 2000s.
On the exchange, a variety of stocks are bought and sold by individual agents, brokers, and traders. People active in the Copenhagen Exchange can also invest in indexes, such as the C20 index, a collection of high performing Nordic stocks administered by the Copenhagen Stock Exchange. In addition to providing investment opportunities, indexes are also economic indicators and their performance is carefully tracked to learn more about the direction a nation's economy is moving in.
As with other stock exchanges, there are standards companies must meet in order to be listed, and they must recertify or face delistment. This is designed to encourage consumer confidence and to limit trades in companies that are in economic trouble or are too small to be traded on the market. Individual traders must also meet codes of conduct and be qualified to trade on the exchange. People typically start trading under the sponsorship and mentoring of a firm before qualifying and starting their own careers, or remaining with their parent firms.
Information on trading in the Copenhagen Stock Exchange, as well as other OMX exchanges is available through many financial publications and may be announced on the financial news. People can also visit the exchange's website to get the latest information about trading. Regular updates are published to keep people abreast of market movements. Analysts can provide breakdowns of what this information means and how it can be used to invest wisely and stay ahead of economic developments. Companies interested in being active on the Nordic markets may opt to retain their own analysts for in-house breakdowns of performance in the OMX markets.