The Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) is an integrated exchange of Australian businesses’ stocks and shares. It operates a wide range of asset classes including commodities, energy, fixed income and equities. It is commonly ranked among the top exchanges globally.
Brief history of the ASX
Although Australia's first stock exchange was established in 1861, regional stock exchanges traded independently of one another and adhered to their own individual rules and regulations. There was no Index that represented the Australian share market as a whole, only as individual regional indices. In 1987, the Australian government passed a legislation that allowed the merging of 6 state-based stock exchanges; from that, the Australian Stock Exchange (ASX) was born. The ASX ran independently for 19 years before merging with the Sydney Futures Exchange (SFE) and was renamed to the Australian Securities Exchange as we know it today.
What are the functions of the ASX?
The ASX is a fully functioning securities exchange that provides a number of services including listings, trading, clearing, settlements, technical and information services and post-trade services. They operate in a variety of markets and offer multiple trading systems.
What can be bought and sold on the ASX market?
Made up of 2000+ companies, you can either buy and sell shares across the exchange, or you can trade CFDs on it.
Investing
You can invest in the ASX by buying or selling individual shares or stock CFDs of companies across multiple sectors offered within the exchange. If you want to take a broader approach, you can also invest in an Exchange Traded Fund, also known as an ETF. By investing with ETFs, you can invest across a broader spectrum of companies grouped by sector, company size, growth rates, plus more. There are various ETFs to choose from depending on your criteria, and this type of investing can be done if you don't want to commit to one particular company or business, but want a range of shares from multiple organizations.
Trading
You can also trade contracts for differences (CFDs) on the ASX. By trading CFDs, you can speculate on the price movement of an asset without owning it outright.
ThinkMarkets offers shares investing, ETFs plus CFD trading on the ASX.
Markets the ASX operates in:
- Funds management
- Foriegn exchange market
- Bond market
- Equity market
- Derivatives market
- Financial development, plus more
Sectors included on the ASX-
The ASX has over 2,000 listed companies across various sectors including but not limited to:
- Real Estate
- IT
- Energy
- Financials
- Materials
- Metals/Mining
- Healthcare
- Telecommunication service
- Utilities
How to start investing and trading on the ASX
Our ThinkTrader platform enables you to buy over 3000 stocks, shares and ETFs on the ASX with a flat fee brokerage. We offer HIN ownership so you have complete control of your shares and 24/7 customer support. Create an account with us, and start investing with
ThinkTrader.
We also offer CFD trading on all 3 of our platforms - MT4, MT5 and ThinkTrader. With tight spreads and flexible trade sizes, you can trade stocks and shares on the ASX with leverage and flexible trading conditions.
Create an account today and trade on the ASX.
Any opinions, news, research, analyses, prices or other information contained on this website is provided as general market commentary and does not constitute investment advice. ThinkMarkets will not accept liability for any loss or damage including, without limitation, to any loss of profit which may arise directly or indirectly from use of or reliance on such information.