Barcelona Stock Exchange

What Is the Barcelona Stock Exchange?

The Barcelona Stock Exchange (BCN) is one of Spain's four major stock exchanges. The Barcelona Stock Exchange is located in the Eixample District, on Passeig de Gràcia.

The other official stock exchanges of Spain are Bilbao Stock Exchange (Bolsa de Bilbao), the Madrid Stock Exchange (Bolsa de Madrid), and the Valencia Stock Exchange (Bolsa de Valencia).

Understanding the Barcelona Stock Exchange

The Barcelona Stock Exchange — also called the Bolsa de Barcelona — trades warrants, exchange-traded funds (ETFs), public debt, Latin American stocks, and more, using computer-assisted trading and open-outcry floor trading.

The Barcelona Stock Exchange has an integrated communications network that provides for optimum access to the following markets: Interconnected Stock-Market System, floor trading, MAB and Latibex, warrants and ETFs, Fixed Income and Public Debt Trading System, Catalonian Public Debt Market, in addition to the options and futures markets. 

The Barcelona Stock Exchange provides back-office services in the following areas: Post Trading Management System (SGP in Spanish), Clearing Management System (SGC in Spanish), Deposit Management System (SGD in Spanish). It also offers issuer financial operations monitoring, shareholder registration, and accounting registration of non-listed shares.

The Barcelona Stock Exchange official index is the BCN-100 Index, a trade-weighted index consisting of the exchange's 100 most-traded companies. It also has several other indexes, including the BCN PER-30, BCN ROE-30, BCN MID-50, and BCN INDEXCAT.

Spanish Stock Exchange

In the middle ages, commodity exchanges emerged at the time of the commercial revolution in Catalonia. Toward the middle of the nineteenth century, with the industrial boom and the birth of the first Catalan corporations, the first trading of securities began (with a particularly active market in Barcelona). The official stock exchange was created in 1915: its governance and administration were under the Colegio de Agentes de Cambio y Bolsa stockbrokers association until 1989. The Stock Market Act of 1989 became part of the Sociedad Rectora de la Bolsa de Valores de Barcelona (SAU). In 2002, the Barcelona Stock Exchange joined the Bolsas y Mercados Españoles Group (BME).

The BME was designed to streamline Spain's four major securities exchanges and is headquartered in Madrid. Companies listed on the Spanish Stock Exchange are primarily Spain-based companies. The BME trades shares in euro, and the ISO 4217 currency code for euro is EUR with the symbol €. The BME collaboration oversees the systems and securities traded within Spain. It governs the regulation and trading of market derivatives, settlement systems, fixed-income markets, equities, and clearing systems.

The following exchanges are in the BME Group: Iberclear Stock Exchange, Valencia Stock Exchange, BME Consulting, Barcelona Stock Exchange, Madrid Stock Exchange, and the Bilbao Stock Exchange. BME enables firms, investors, and intermediaries to trade in a safe and liquid environment. The BME also ensures competitive and world-class markets. The unified stock exchanges trade a large variety of products and securities and, as a result, make trading more cost-effective.