London and New York Stock Exchanges/NASDAQ

Trading volumes on the London Stock Exchange, NYSE and the NASDAQ fell away by 53.9%, 36.6% and 42.9% respectively in 2009. Despite this, and despite the fact that emerging exchanges such as Shenzhen in China grew by more than 123%, the NYSE easily remains the worlds largest stock exchange in terms of trading volumes and by market capitalization the NYSE, NASDAQ and LSE populate three out of the five largest exchanges in the world. Here are some facts on three of the world's best known stock exchanges (year to date December 2009, data from International Federation of Stock Exchanges)

New York Stock Exchange

• Founded in 1817
• market capitalization $11,670bn (£7,537bn)
• 2,326 listed companies
• Value of share trading $17,521,119bn (£11,374,415bn)
• World's largest stock exchange

London Stock Exchange

• Founded in 1801
• market capitalization $2,681bn (£1,732bn)
• 2,713 listed companies
• value of share trading $1,771,811bn (£1,150,408bn)
• Largest stock exchange in Europe

NASDAQ

• Founded 1971
• market capitalization $3,295bn (£2,128bn)
• 2,807 listed companies
• value of share trading $13,608,077bn (£8,835,773bn)
• Largest electronic screen based equity securities trading market in the United States

Conde Nast Building, 4 Times Square, New York City

Statistics

• Constructed 1995-2000
• Height 247m (809ft)
• Height to spire 348m (1,143ft)
• 48 floors
• 149,000 sqm (1,600,000 sqft)
• Architects Fox & Fowle

With it's industrial features and it's intricately busy location, New York City could almost have been built around the Conde Nast building, being a common feature in popular culture such as the film Battlestar Galactica and computer game Grand Theft Auto IV. However, behind the industrial machismo of the skyscraper lies a fully integrated green design to a building which initially raised concerns over the impact it's size would have on Times Square. The building does not need to be heated or cooled for most of the year due to the operation of environmentally friendly gas fired absorption chillers along with a high performing insulating and shading curtain wall.

Interestingly, and in the shadow of 11th September, the mast of the building was replaced between 2002 and 2003 to support television and radio broadcasters as a back up transmission site so that work could be completed to relocate those displaced by the destruction of the World Trade Centre to the Empire State Building without disruption to existing FM tenants at the ESB. The new mast which is 91m (300ft) makes the Conde Nast building the third tallest structure in NYC.

Another instantly recognisable feature of the Conde Nast building and what makes it one of the most documented buildings at street level is the 10-story video wall on the NASDAQ Marketsite which provides market data, financial information and advertising. Saco Technologies Inc. (Montreal, Quebec, Canada) provided NASDAQ with it's 1,000 sqm, $37m Smartvision screen. Saco CEO Gary Nalven says, "The NASDAQ building's LED screen has become a fantastic symbol of the financial community in some ways replacing the Wall Street image of it's Roman column building. A day doesn't go by in Times Square where NASDAQ isn't being photographed or videoed by the international media as a backdrop for their reporters."