Paris Bourse

Historically, stock trading activities have been located in several spots of the Parisian geography, including the rue Quincampoix, the rue Vivienne (near the Palais Royal), or the back of the Opéra Garnier (the Paris opera house). In the early nineteenth century, the Paris Bourse's activities found a stable location at the Palais Brongniart, or Palais de la Bourse (the building is due to architect Alexandre-Théodore Brongniart).

From the second half of the nineteenth century, official stock markets in Paris were operated by the Compagnie des agents de change, directed by the elected members of a stockbrokers' syndical council. The number of participants in the processes of the formation of prices and of exchange in each of the different trading areas of the Bourse was limited.

In the case of the agents de change (the official stockbrokers at the Paris Bourse), there were around 60. An agent de change had to be a French citizen, be nominated by a former agent or his estate, be approved by the Minister of Finance, and was appointed by decree of the President of the Republic.

Officially, the agents de change could not trade for their own account nor therefore even be a counterpart to someone who wanted to buy or sell securities with their aid; they were strictly brokers, that is, intermediaries. In the financial literature, the Paris Bourse is hence referred to as "order-driven market", as oppose to "quote-driven markets" or "dealer markets", where price-setting is handled by a dealer or market-maker.

In Paris, only agents de change could receive a commission, at a rate Žfixed by law, for acting as an intermediary. However, parallel arrangements were usual in order to favor some clients' quote. Moreover, until approximately the middle of the twentieth century, a parallel market known as "La Coulisse" was in operation.

Until the late 1980s, this market was operating as an open outcry exchange, with the "agents de change" (the Parisian stockbrokers) meeting in the exchange floor of the Palais Brongniart. In 1986, the Paris Bourse started implementing an electronic trading system known as CATS (Computer Assisted Trading System), renamed CAC (Cotation Assistée en Continu) for the Parisian version. By 1989, quotation was fully automated.

The Palais Brongniart was then hosting the French financial derivatives exchanges MATIF and MONEP, until full automation of these in 1998. In the late 1990s, the Paris Bourse launched the Euronext initiative, which consisted in the alliance of several European stock exchanges.