As of June 2008, there is still no annual report for the last fiscal year (2007) on the site available. It is not clear if this is functional. From the 2006 report we get an idea of ​​this company.

BME stands for “Bolsas y Mercados Españoles”, or in English: The Spanish Exchanges and Markets, or Spanish Stock Exchange. The meaning of this name is that in Spain the stock exchanges were not centralized units. Instead, up to nine different markets offered business possibilities. Under the current president, Antonio Zoido, these markets were concentrated in just four (regional) exchanges. IN 2002 BME became the new holding company for this global structure. In 2007, BME itself went public.

2006 has been the best year in its history (on record) for BME. In 2006, Spain experienced its eighth consecutive year of strong economic growth. And the report explains the correlation of trading volumes and GDP growth.

An interesting detail on the site is that there is no contact form, nor an email address. Contact information is restricted to telephone or normal visits (“how to get there”).

There are three banks that have a minority stake in BME: Santander (8.6%), BBVA (5.4%) and the Bank of Spain (5.3%).

The most striking thing about the annual report is the amount of sales information. An example of this is the information on the BME ranking. Here are some examples:

By trading volume in equities: 4th IN EUROPE, 7th IN THE WORLD. 1.15 trillion euros in 2006

By trading volume in fixed income: 1st IN THE WORLD, 1.17 trillion euros in 2006

By trading volume in individual stock futures: 4th IN EUROPE, 5th WORLDWIDE. 21.23 million contracts in 2006

By market capitalization of listed shares: 4th IN EUROPE, 9th IN THE WORLD. 1.13 trillion euros at the end of 2006

By new liquidity flows channeled to variable income products: 2nd IN EUROPE, 6th IN THE WORLD. 22,380 million euros in 2006

In terms of capitalization of the Latin American stock market, 2nd IN THE WORLD. 274,320 million euros at the end of 2006

More technical information about service level achievements or details about technical developments are not published. The only thing that is mentioned is that the information systems are important for the operation of the stock market. It’s a shame, because this might give more insight into whether the exchange is likely to grow across all of those rankings…

HJB