The Irish Stock Exchange (ISE) is Ireland's stock exchange and can trace its history to 1793. In 1799, the Irish Parliament passed the Stock Exchange (Dublin) Act which set up the Dublin Stock Exchange. In 1973, the exchange merged with the other British and Irish stock exchanges. From 1973 to 1995, the Dublin Stock Exchange was a member of the International Stock Exchange of Great Britain and Ireland (now called the London Stock Exchange).The current independent Irish Stock Exchange was established in 1995, breaking the link with London. On 6th June 2000, the ISE closed its famous trading floor in Anglesea Street, Dublin 2, and switched to an electronic trading platform called ISE XETRA. This is owned by, and the same trading platform used by, the Deutsche Borse (Frankfurt Stock Exchange).
Most Irish public limited companies have their primary listing on the Exchange. However it is not compulsory for them to do so (the most notable exception is NTR plc, which is unlisted and traded via a grey market). Some companies based outside of Ireland, such as Tesco also trade on the ISE (often via a secondary listing) for the convenience of their shareholders. The ISE also trades in a number of other equities, and Irish Government bonds
The published index of shares is known as the Irish Stock Exchange Quotient or ISEQ Overall Index. Other indexes of the exchange include the ITEQ Index, the ISEQ 20, the ISEQ General, ISEQ SmallCap, and ISEQ Financial.
On 29 March 2005, the ISE announced that it would launch a new market for small-cap companies, the Irish Enterprise Exchange (IEX). This will replace the ISE Exploration Securities Market and ISE Developing Companies' Market, and will initally consist of eight companies. This is seen as an attempt to compete with the London Stock Exchange Alternative Investment Market.
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