BSE remains world's top bourse

Leaves NYSE, Nasdaq far behind

Leading bourse BSE has extended its lead as the world's top exchange in terms of the number of listed companies, outpacing the major global peers like NYSE, Nasdaq and London Stock Exchange by almost 100 per cent.

The BSE had a total of 5,174 companies listed on its platform at the end of last month, outpacing its closed rival Canadian bourse TMX Group by more than 1,000 firms or over 20 per cent, as per the latest data available with the World Federation of Exchange (WFE).

The number of listed companies on BSE platform is almost double that of major bourses like UK's London Stock Exchange and American bourses like NASDAQ and NYSE.

Another Indian bourse, National Stock Exchange (NSE) is ranked 10th with a total number of 1,660 listed companies.

The listed firms on BSE has increased from 5,115 in January to 5,174 in October, the WFE data showed. The number of companies listed on BSE rose by 11 companies in October alone.

BSE is followed by TMX Group, BME Spanish Exchanges, London SE Group, NASDAQ OMX, NYSE Euronext (US), Tokyo SE Group, Australian SE, Korea Exchange and NSE in the top ten.

While TMX has 3,964 listed companies, London Stock Exchange has 2,782 companies, NASDAQ OMX has 2,598 and NYSE Euronext (US) has 2,345.

WFE said the data is based on number of companies which have shares listed on an exchange at the end of October, split into domestic and foreign, excluding investment funds and unit trusts. A company with several classes of shares is counted just once, according to WFE.

As per the data, all the listed companies on the BSE are of domestic orgin -- which are firms that are incorporated in the same country as where the exchange is located.

In terms of number of listed foreign companies, London Stock Exchange is on the top position with 583 such entities, followed by NYSE Euronext (US) with 525 listed overseas firms.