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Around
the World
Global
trading is a real concept.�
Not too many decades ago, stocks for the most part
traded on the stock exchanges in New York, Tokyo, and London.�
Realistically that was it.�
But things have changed during the last handful of
years.� Just as
we have had to incorporate after-hours trading in the U.S.
into our thinking, we now have to consider a vast array of
stock markets around the world.�
Taking
a quick count, there are stock exchanges in 52 countries that
can be followed by any investor on their personal computer.�
Some of these countries, like the U.S. have more than
one place where stocks trade, not even taking into consideration
the exchanges trading options and futures.�
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After the North American markets close, the next markets
to open are the Pacific and Far East Markets.�
While we are returning from a fun-filled weekend on
Sunday evening the Pacific Rim countries are arriving for
work on Monday morning.�
The Pacific markets begin trading with the Australia
and New Zealand markets opening at 6pm EST.�
The New Zealand markets provide little impact but the
Australian All-Ordinaries Index is followed globally.�
At 7pm EST the Japanese and South Korean markets begin
trading, followed shortly as the business day begins by the
Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, Philippines, Indonesia, and
Thailand.� The
most closely followed indexes in the region are the Nikkei
225 in Japan and the Hang Seng in Hong Kong.�
Although there are stock exchanges across the Asian
sub-continent and the Middle East the next significant markets
to open are in Europe.�
Like Asia, Europe and the eastern block countries have
minor and major markets.�
The markets in England, Germany and France are followed
most closely along with their respective indexes, the FTSE
100, DAX, and CAC 40.����
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The
significance of these different world markets is certainly their
added liquidity to widely held stocks but also as a gauge to
financial news occurring in the U.S. and global markets, and
global political events happening when the U.S. markets are
closed.� The Asian
markets have a heavy concentration of hi-tech stocks so it�s
helpful to see how these markets respond to bad news in the
U.S. tech sector.� The
Asian markets often get their direction from the U.S. markets.��
In turn, the Europeans watch how the Asian markets perform,
and the U.S. markets are influenced by the trading day in Europe.�
It�s worth watching how the other world markets around
the world are doing because it will ultimately influence how
your investments perform.
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