Death of a market

Germany's Neuer Markt stock exchange was supposed to provide a home for innovative young technology companies, providing investors with potentially huge growth opportunities. But five years after its founding, the Neuer Markt instead came to be viewed as a place where share prices fell into a bottomless gulf, annihilating capital from both retail and institutional investors. As a result, the Deutsche Boerse announced it would discontinue both the Neuer Markt and the small cap segment SMAX of the Frankfurt Stock Exchange by the end of 2003.

Deutsche Boerse plans to replace them with a new model for the segmentation of its equity market at the FSE. Two new listing segments, "domestic standard" and "prime standard," will allow investors to differentiate between the regulatory standards with which the companies have agreed to comply. ...