• The Paris Bourse (or Euronext Paris)

The Paris Bourse, also called « Place of Paris », is the official market of shares in France. It is a market that is divided in several compartments governed by specific rules and that represent different degrees of risks and liquidity. In France, the Law of July, 2nd, 1996 distinguishes two types of markets, the « regulated » markets and the« free » markets. For regulated markets we differenciate: the Primary Market, Secondary Market and the New Market.

The Paris Bourse has known many evolutions since its creation until its merger within the NYSE Euronext in 2007.
On September, 24th, 1724, a decision made by the Council of State of the king gives birth to the Paris Bourse.
Thanks to this, the king hopes to re-establish a semblance of order within the French economy, which had been shattered by the bankruptcy of law. A bankruptcy led to the ruin of many savers and a strong distrust of the investors toward shares.

The Bourse of Paris is thus subjected to a strict regulation which stipulates, among other things, that no women can have access to it. The king also regulates the negotiation of stocks by forbidding some activities and some societies.

The French revolution did not condemn the development of the Paris Bourse. Of course, it had been « definitely » closed in 1795, but only for a few weeks, and its reopening was quiet fast.
Everything starts again in 1801, the year of officializing of the Bourse with 71 stockbrokers.
In 1808, Napoleon I laid the foundation stone of the Palais Brongniart, designed by the architect Alexandre-Théodore Brongniart hence the name » « Palais Brongniart », and it is destined to welcome the Paris Bourse.

The building will finally be inaugurated on November, 4th 1826 by the Comte de Chabrol (Prefect of the Seine), the Paris Bourse, that was temporarily located in the Palais-Royal (since October 1809), enters the place that was made for it and that will become the lung of the financial activity of the 19th century. The Palais Brongniart welcomed the Paris Bourse for more than 150 years before it made way to a computerized system.

Until the end of the 1980s, the Paris Bourse is run by the corporation of stockholders, which benefit from a monopoly on the stock exchange list. All the stock exchange transactions used to be made on the public prosecutor's office on auction in the Palais. But to face the competition of the other international trading places (especially the London Stock Exchange), the Paris Bourse, which mainly used to work on auction, modernizes; the famous trading floor, around which stockholders dealt the biggest values of the stock exchange list, was precisely removed on July 13th 1987. The Stock Exchange index system, progressively introduced between 1986 and 1989, made the continued listing possible.

The status of stockholders is modified and new stock exchange societies appear. In 1988, the stock exchange index is suppressed to make way to the Société des Bourses Françaises (a French stock market index) in the form of funds societies. The modernization of the Paris Bourse is related to other initiatives such as the creation, from 1989, of organised markets of financial by- products. The modernity of the Parisian rating place opened the way to foreign investors.

From the end of the 1990s, and after the setting up of the NSC (Nouveau Système de Cotation or New stock Exchange List System), the Paris Bourse started a merger initiative between various European stock exchanges, that will cumulate with the creation on the Euronext in 2000. Two years later, this new European stock exchange will buy out the British by-products market LIFFE and will welcome the Lisbon Stock Exchange. The firm Euronext Paris will then be set up and in charge of the management of the Parisian stock exchange markets. It will partly occupy the offices of the Palais Brongniart.

In 2007, Euronext seals its union with the NYSE to give birth to the first global stock exchange: NYSE Euronext. However, the Paris Bourse kept a status of international head office.

The Paris Bourse is considered as a market run by the agencies orders or market. The prices of listed stocks are determined by the direct confrontation of the buying and selling orders.

Today, in the Palais Brongniart, sophisticated products are listed, such as the negotiable options on the MONEP (French financial derivatives exchanges, and future contracts on the MATIF (a future contracts market in France)…the Palais still shelters the daily listing of gold.

To start investing in stock exchange you need to register to an authorized organism like your bank and you will be ready to invest in Paris Bourse from Tokyo, Los Angeles or Canada. The Paris Bourse has become a private firm, Paris-Bourse SBF, which is listed in Stock Exchange. It is then possible to become a shareholder of the Paris Bourse.

The palais Brongniart is a monument as impressive as a temple : there are daily guided visits on the agenda. The rating floor is invisible on the museum of the first floor.