Trillions of pounds of stocks are traded every day at the London Stock Exchange (LSE) and on Wednesday 4th July 2018 at 8.00am precisely I officially opened the trading for that day for the London stock market.
Whilst trading is normally opened by one of the officials at LSE, they do often invite people to open proceedings in order to allow certain causes and campaigns to be advertised.
I opened the London Stock Exchange that day to champion the City of London Corporation’s ‘Women: Work and Power’ arts and culture programme, which celebrates those women who have worked so hard over the years for women’s rights.
The London Stock Exchange is the largest stock exchange in Europe and the third largest in the world: £3.6 trillion worth of stock were traded on the day that I opened it! These numbers show just how strong financial services are here in the UK; financial services represent 12% of total UK economic output, supporting over 1 million jobs all around the country. Financial services in this country continue to grow and London is still considered to be the best city in the world for the finance sector. We have a long history of a strong service and a huge finance sector in this country- the London Stock Exchange can trace its history back more than 300 years- and our financial sector continues to grow.