I think the odds of a shift to Asia would be higher. I would not be surprised or put it past the idiots in DC to ruin and destroy our leadership in the capital markets. Especially with the spend "the credit card has no limit". Along with the "spread the wealth" we don't have to feel any pain attitude we have now
if they had the .25 bhp tax on stock transactions forex and foreign markets will be huge. the us equity market will dry up an die
Wherever we get volume and volatility.... Asia has a LONG way to go. Maybe Hong Kong, Shanghai etc. will be larger markets in 30 years. Definitely not in five.
Asia is out of the question. China has A-Shares and B-shares. The A market is much more liquid but it is only opened to domestic individuals and in some rare cases foreign institutional firms. The mkt is far from developed... stock options are just emerging now. The issue w/ Europe is that their stocks are priced very high. Volume is so-so, but the spreads are too wide for traditional market-makers. Considering that different countries comprise the EU, there is no one huge futures exchange like there is the CME in the US. This prevents the index arbs from getting in and adding liquidity to the mkt as a whole... outside of London. If you are looking for volatility though... look no further than the Chinese mkt. It is the world's crazies roller-coaster. Stocks are extremely sensitive to governmental policies that influence companies. Insider trading is another problem. There is also a lack of oversight. This mkt at times should be referred to "illiquid" rather than volatile. Only in the US you will find buyers for stocks like FNM at $8 (in Sep 2008 I think) or C at $3.... and make the spread one penny. On any other exchange, the spread would be huge... 30 cents or more... there would be no buyers.
Day trading (as we know it in USA) in Hong Kong? Haha... haha... Do you notice that all Hong Kong stock charts have a 2-hour flat-line right in the middle? Yeah. It's called "lunch hour". Local time 12:30 pm to 2:30 pm. ..... Oh... you want to sell out your holding? What?... oh... it's 12:30 pm now. Call me again at two-thirty. Market trading for 4 hours each day. 10-4.