LSE Quiz: How Well Do You Know Markets?

The London Stock Exchange has a long history rooted in the coffee houses of 17th-century London, where merchants and brokers would gather to trade stocks and shares. It was formally established at the start of the 19th century, making it one of the oldest regulated stock exchanges in the world and a cornerstone of global finance.

The London Stock Exchange maintains a flagship index that covers the 100 largest companies listed in the UK by market capitalisation. It was jointly created by the Financial Times and the Stock Exchange and serves as a key indicator of the health of UK-listed businesses. It is widely used by pension funds and institutional investors globally.

In 1986, the United Kingdom carried out a sweeping deregulation of its financial markets that transformed the London Stock Exchange and the broader City of London. The reforms abolished fixed commission charges, allowed foreign firms to own British brokers and shifted trading from an open-outcry system to screen-based electronic trading almost overnight.

FTSE International is a joint venture that was originally formed between two well-known British institutions to manage and publish stock market indices. The name reflects the two founding organisations and has become one of the most recognised index brands in global finance, providing benchmarks used by fund managers and investors around the world.

The London Stock Exchange publishes a mid-cap index that covers the next tier of companies ranked just below the top 100. This index represents a broad section of UK-listed businesses across various industries and is considered a useful indicator of the domestic UK economy, as many companies in it are more focused on British rather than global markets.