What is the Australian Securities Exchange?

Based in Sydney, the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) is the main stock exchange in Australia. Although most people still call it the Australian Stock Exchange, it merged with the Sydney Futures Exchange in 2006, hence the current name.

Where have you heard about the Australian Securities Exchange?

The ASX isn’t perhaps one of the more famous stock exchanges around the world, but it is one of the biggest. Top companies that trade on the ASX include BHP Billiton, Rio Tinto, the Commonwealth Bank of Australia and the Telstra Corporation.

What you need to know about the Australian Securities Exchange.

Nowadays, the ASX runs a fully electronic system and has two trading platforms - one for equities and one for derivatives.

Trading hours on the exchange run from 7am to 10am for a pre-market session and from 10am to 4pm for the regular trading session. It operates Monday to Friday apart from on public holidays.

The exchange is tracked by the S&P ASX 200 index, which ranks the top 200 companies. That index is used as a benchmark for the whole Australian economy, and is usually what's quoted by media outlets and analysts.