THE PARIS BOURSE'S RACE AGAINST TIME
The Paris Bourse, like the London Stock Exchange, is protected by a
thick crust of ancient habits and customs. But it's hurrying to
modernize itself before the competition from London-based firms grows
too fierce. For the first time, it's planning to introduce
continuous trading in listed stocks and bonds, it's eroding the
privileges of the profitable but under-capitalized agents de change
(brokers), it's importing new technology, it's unfixing
commissions, and it's opening up trading and market-making to
banks, which have until now been excluded from buying and selling
securities.
To the outsider, securities trading in Paris has always been an
enigma. The senior partners of a sheltered group of agents de change
meet at the bourse from 12.30 p.m. to 2.30 p.m. every day, test their
expensive elbows on the velvet-coated bar of the Corbeille (the central
ring on the floor of the bourse), and...
