Rival global exchange planned

The Tokyo global plan will rival the Anglo-German merger

The Tokyo Stock Exchange is in talks with nine other exchanges, including the New York Stock Market, with a view to creating a 24-hour global equity market.

"We will soon begin talks on the feasibility of the project. Details will be discussed later. We don't have any concrete plans yet," a Tokyo Stock Exchange official said on Wednesday.

The ten exchanges represent about 60% of the worldwide stock trade in value terms, the official added. The planned exchange is to be called the Global Equity Market (GEM).

It can be seen as a clear rival to the iX exchange, the result of a merger between London Stock Exchange and Frankfurt's Deutsche Boerse. The iX exchange also plans to link up with Nasdaq.

Rush to go global

The nine exchanges are those in New York, Australia, Hong Kong, Amsterdam, Brussels, Paris, Toronto, Mexico and Sao Paulo in Brazil.

The move underlines the exchanges' fear they will lose out in the rush to launch global trading.

"Working groups have been set up to lead to the creation of this electronic, global, liquid market working 24 hours a day in three regions, Asia-Oceania, Europe and the Americas," Euronext, the exchange formed by the merger of the Amsterdam, Brussels and Paris bourses, said.

But one analysts warned that "there are a lot of hurdles to clear before moving into cross-border, 24-hour trading, one of which is currency issues."

London calm

The London Stock Exchange made it clear on Wednesday that it was not in talks with the Tokyo-led grouping.

"Today's announcement is an interesting development and part of a wider series of alliances and consolidations among stocks exchanges that we are beginning to see around the world," a spokesman for the London Stock Exchange said.

He added: "There is no current plans to enter into agreements with anybody else at this time."

The iX exchange anticipates interest from the Milan and Madrid exchanges in joining their grouping once it is set up.