Australian Securities Exchange (ASX)

The ASX was established as early as 1861. It is the primary stock exchange in Australia, and it is also a separate state-based exchange. Today trading is all-electronic and ASX became a publicly listed company on the exchange in 1998.

The Australian Securities Exchange as it is now known resulted from the merger of the Australian Stock Exchange and the Sydney Futures Exchange in 2006.

In terms of their market capitalization, the biggest stocks traded on the ASX include BHP Billiton, Commonwealth Bank of Australia, Telstra Corporation, Rio Tinto, National Australia Bank and Australia and New Zealand Banking Group. As at March 2010, the three largest sectors by market cap were financial services (36%), metal and mining (22%) and consumer (13%).

In recent years, mining stocks are very hot among investors from all over the world. Many of these mining stocks can be traded on the ASX. The table below provides some basic information about the top 3 mining stocks by market capitalization.

All Ordinaries (All Ords)

It is a market-capitalization weighted stock market index. It consists of the 500 largest companies listed on the ASX. It was established in 1980, and had a base index of 500.

Depository Information

Please click here for depository steps and related depository bank account information.

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