Spanish stock market trading falls to 2004 levels | Financial Markets

Investors are buying and selling fewer and fewer shares listed on the Spanish stock exchange. In 2023, trading volume in Spanish shares fell by 14.6% to 630,529 million euros, the lowest level since 2004, the securities market watchdog said. In a year in which the capitalization of Spanish stock markets reached a historical maximum, increasing by 17.2% to 686.8 billion euros, thanks to a strong market overvaluation (Ibex rose by 22.7%), the slowdown in stock market trading seen in recent years has accelerated. years.

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Investors are buying and selling fewer and fewer shares listed on the Spanish stock exchange. In 2023, trading volume in Spanish shares fell by 14.6% to 630,529 million euros, the lowest level since 2004, the securities market watchdog said. In a year in which the capitalization of Spanish stock markets reached a historical maximum, increasing by 17.2% to 686.8 billion euros, thanks to a strong market overvaluation (Ibex rose by 22.7%), the slowdown in stock market trading seen in recent years has accelerated. years.

The National Securities Market Commission (CNMV) details in its 2023 annual report that the sharp drop in trading volume extends beyond the Spanish Stock Exchanges and Markets (BME), where cash trading volumes fell by 17.6% to €289,842.5 million, and was repeated in other trading platforms such as CBOE and Turquoise, which recorded declines of 16% and 17.5% respectively. Thus, only the negotiations carried out through Equiduct registered an increase, although still small: €18,135.8 million and represent 5.3% of the total.

BME, the asset manager of the Swiss Six group, still holds the lead in Spanish stock exchange trading, although the CBOE is closing in. According to CNMV data, BME’s share at the end of last year was 46.3% of the total, compared to 39.2% for the CBOE. Of course, the regulator’s data differs from that provided by the manager of the Spanish Stock Exchange, which uses Liquidmetrix data, which includes auction trading volume, according to which the company’s share is 67.46%.

Regarding sanctions, the CNMV reports that in 2023, an increase in the number of cases opened was recorded to reach 17, three more than the previous year, and that a total of 12 sanctions cases were concluded, of which four were opened in 2022 and the rest last year.

The supervisory authority specifies that the sanctions orders last year included a total of 43 fines amounting to €1.9 million, down 69.8% from €6.4 million the previous year. In addition, there was a four-month position suspension sanction and a €471,403 profit reversal sanction against Solventis for improperly charging fees to discretionary portfolio management clients.

The market controller also explains that over the past year it has received a total of 862 notifications of possible violations through its reporting channel (exposurein English), 14% more than the previous year. Having eliminated warnings issued improperly, either because they constituted a request or complaint or because they were outside the CNMV’s control, the director specifies that the remaining informers resulted in the publication of 95 new warnings about so-called financial chiringuitos, organisations that do not have the regulator’s permission to operate in the market. Moreover, he notes that only 2% of these complaints resulted in concrete actions beyond warnings about unregulated organisations. Sure enough, one of them managed to trigger a disciplinary case.

At the end of 2023, the supervisory authority chaired by Rodrigo Buenaventura achieved a net result of €15.8 million, up 13.9% from €13.87 million the previous year. The increase is due to a total income of €74.3 million, with expenses incurred of €58.5 million. The supervisory authority’s ordinary income from fees increased by 6.4% last year to €14.7 million, thanks to an increase in fees for the supervision of entities, which outweighed the fall in fees for market supervision.

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