Global Market Surveillance

This paper provides evidence on market surveillance from exchanges and securities commissions from twenty-five jurisdictions in North, Central and South America, Western and Eastern Europe, Africa, and Asia. Exchanges as SROs engage in a greater range of single-market surveillance of market manipulative practices than securities commissions, but the scope of cross-market surveillance activity is very similar among exchanges and securities commissions. Cross-market surveillance is more effective with information-sharing arrangements, and securities commissions are more likely to engage in information sharing than exchanges are. Relative to the scope of single-market surveillance, the scope of cross-market surveillance shows a stronger positive association with trading velocity, the number of listed companies, and market capitalization. The data also indicate that as at 2005, there is ample scope for jurisdictions to expand their cross-market surveillance and thereby stimulate investor confidence and trading activity.