Introduction
In some cases it makes more sense to have a look at the stock exchanges as an investment rather than as just a trading venue to trade in stocks. The exchanges tend to perform well during good economic times as more companies tend to raise capital and execute on IPO plans, but the volatility during weaker times on the markets also help to mitigate the downside risk as higher volatility should result in higher trading fees which mitigates the impact from a lower amount of corporate transactions.
Source: company presentation
One of the larger