Qatar Stock Exchange

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The Qatar Exchange ("QE") is a stock exchange in the Gulf Cooperation Council countries formed in 2009 following a strategic partnership agreement between Qatar Holding and NYSE Euronext. Previously, the exchange was known as the Doha Securities Market ("DSM").
The exchange has 43 listed companies and its market capitalization is over QR676 billion (US$185 billion) in 2014.
QE is regulated by the Qatar Financial Markets Authority. 
==Background==
 
The DSM was formed by law in 1995 and commenced floor trading operations in May 1997 before switching to full electronic trading in March 2002. On its inception in 1997 the DSM listed 17 publicly traded corporations but by the end of 2008 that number had steadily increased to 43, while the exchange's total market capitalization rose from 18.8 billion Qatari rials at the end of 2000 to QR279 billion in 2008.
Eighty percent of the new QE venture is currently owned by Qatar Holding, an arm of Qatar's sovereign wealth fund the Qatar Investment Authority (QIA), while 20% representing a $200 million stake is held by international exchange group NYSE Euronext, which also supplied the new venture's CEO. NYSE Euronext will now work on upgrading QE's current electronic platform to its recently developed Universal Trading Platform (UTP), intended to operate across all NYSE excahnge markets. NYSE reduced its stake in the new venture fron its initial 25% ($US250 million) announced in June 2008.
Even this reduced Qatar Exchange investment is believed to give NYSE Euronext a solid foothold into the broadening and growing Middle Eastern exchange sector that QE aims to dominate in future, partially by employing NYSE technology like UTP. Qatar is forecast to be second-largest Gulf states economy within six years by the Gulf Co-operation Council.
In 2009, Qatar Exchange's appointed Andre Went as CEO. He was formerly the Europe managing director of data solutions for NYSE Euronext based in Amsterdam. In late 2008 Went, who spent 20 years with NYSE Euronext and its predecessor, was instrumental in launching Euronext's TradeCheck application that allows electronic traders to check asset prices across a range of exchanges and other trading platforms for the best deal.
In February 2013, QE announced the launch of the “Sponsored Access” and the “Liquidity Provider” facilities, whereby the first activity will allow Sponsoring Members to provide eligible customers (Sponsored Participants) direct access to the trading system of Qatar Exchange, while the second activity will enable members to submit LP applications for the QE 20 index-constituent securities in accordance with the governing rules.
==Key people==
*Dr. Hussain Ali Al Abullah, Acting Chairman
*Rashid Bin Ali Al-Mansoori, CEO
*Ahmad Muhammad Al Sayed, Vice Chairman
*Sheikh Mohammed Bin Hamad Bin Jassim Al- Thani, Member
*Abdulrahman Ahmad Al Shaibi, Member
*Khalifa Jassim Al Kuwari, Member
*Ali Ahmad Al Kuwari, Member, 
*Rashid Bin Ali Al-Mansoori, Member
*Fraser Cowie, Member
*Roland Bellegarde, Member
*Michel Prada, Member
*Eric Varvel, Member
==Latest news==
The new owners of the QE now aim to expand the exchange's reach beyond equities trading to become a "multi-asset class" exchange, the QIA revealed at the end of June 2009. As well as trading shares, the QE will in future list exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and exchange-traded commodities (ETCs) plus bonds, sukuk (Islamic bonds) and index-based products. 
Qatar Exchange also plans to launch a Qatari derivatives exchange in the near future based on the UTP to trade single stock futures and options as well as index options and is currently examining the feasibility of cross-listing traded securities from other exchanges and platforms, a QIA spokesman told Gulf Daily News. QE is also planning an initial public offering (IPO) but gave no indication of when or how large the offering might be. 
== References ==
Category:Exchanges
Category:Qatar Exchanges
Category:Qatar
Category:NYSE Euronext