The clue as to why the London Stock Exchange has risen sevenfold in value in the past seven years is not contained in its name. The best days of being a stock exchange are in the past, when they were near-monopolies owned by market-making members and could easily make money. That was long ago.

对于伦敦证交所(LSE)为何在过去7年价值增长7倍，线索不在于其名称。股票交易所的黄金时代是在它们近乎垄断、由做市商会员拥有的过去。那是很久之前的事情了。

But a funny thing happened on the way to their demise. The businesses formerly run as stock exchanges became more valuable despite a wave of disruption unleashed by regulation, technology and competition. They should be in trouble but the leading ones have instead been transformed.

但在它们衰落的过程中发生了一件有趣的事情。早先作为交易所运营的企业变得更有价值，尽管监管、科技和竞争带来一波破坏。现在它们本应陷入困境，但那些领先交易所却已经成功转型。

This phenomenon is on show on both sides of the Atlantic. The IEX trading platform, made famous by Michael Lewis’s book Flash Boys, has applied to become the 13th US stock exchange. The buttonwood tree under which 24 brokers agreed to form the New York Stock Exchange in 1792 has become a forest of competing bourses.

这种现象在大西洋两岸均有体现。因迈克尔•刘易斯(Michael Lewis)所著的《高频交易员》(Flash Boys)而闻名的IEX交易平台已申请成为美国第13家证券交易所。1792年，24名经纪人在一棵梧桐树下商定创建纽约证交所(New York Stock Exchange)，如今这颗“树”已经成为众多竞争的证券交易所的“森林”。

In Europe a battle looms for control of the LSE, which looked vulnerable after the 2008 financial crisis but is now highly prized. It is planning an agreed merger with Deutsche Börse and rivals such as Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), which owns the New York Stock Exchange, are considering counterbids.

在欧洲，伦敦证交所的控制权争夺战日益逼近，该交易所在2008年金融危机之后曾显得非常脆弱，现在却备受珍视。它正计划与德意志交易所(Deutsche Börse)完成拟议中的合并，而旗下拥有纽约证交所的洲际交易所(ICE)等竞争对手则在考虑提出竞争性收购报价。

The oddity of all this activity is that, as one equity trader puts it: “The core business of matching buyers and sellers is not very profitable and does not have great prospects.” Being a stock exchange was fine while entry barriers were high and they could shield themselves from competition. As soon as that was undermined, particularly in the US, they became vulnerable.

所有这些活动的古怪之处在于，正如一位股票交易员所言：“撮合买卖双方的核心业务的利润率并不是很高，而且没有靓丽的前景。”当进入门槛很高、而且可以让自己免受竞争的时候，证券交易所的日子还不错。只要这种前提遭到破坏（尤其是在美国），它们就变得非常脆弱。

The NYSE’s share of US equity trading has fallen from 72 per cent to 24 per cent in the past decade amid competition from new exchanges and “dark pools” — platforms run by banks and others for institutions to trade privately. Exchange fees are razor-thin; some dark pools in effect pay to attract business.

由于来自新的交易所和“暗池”的竞争，过去10年期间纽约证交所在美国股票交易中的份额从72%降至24%。暗池是指由银行和其他机构运营的机构私下交易平台。交易手续费极为低廉；一些暗池实际上贴钱吸引业务。

IEX has provoked an uproar by seeking to impose an infinitesimal delay on outside orders routed through its exchange — 350 microseconds, or less than one-thousandth of the time needed to blink. The fact that regulators are wrestling over an interval of time that they would not even have noticed a decade ago shows how high-speed trading by computers has taken over.

IEX寻求对经由其平台的外部指令延迟350微秒（不足眨眼所需时间的千分之一），这引发了轩然大波。监管机构与10年前它们甚至不会注意到的时间间隔较劲的事实表明，由计算机进行的高频交易已如何占据主导地位。

Trading volumes are huge — the global number of trades rose by 55 per cent last year — and IEX says the delay is needed to stop equity markets being rigged in an arms race of rapid-fire trading. Exchanges were once strong enough to enforce discipline on brokers; they now accept fees to let high-speed traders locate servers in their buildings and gain a tiny time advantage.

交易量是巨大的——去年全球交易量增长了55%——而IEX表示，为了让股市不再被高频交易“军备竞赛”操纵，上述延迟是必要的。交易所曾经足够强大，可以对经纪商实行纪律；如今它们收取费用，允许高频交易商将服务器放在它们的大楼里，以获得微小的时间优势。

If stock exchanges are so weak, why are the companies that own them so resilient? The answer is simple: the LSE is not really a stock exchange any more. Equity trading comprises about 10 per cent of its revenues (and 7 per cent of the revenues of ICE). The bulk of its business is based neither on shares nor on trading but on other securities and activities.

既然股票交易所这么脆弱，那么为何拥有它们的公司韧性这么强？答案很简单：伦敦证交所不再是一家真正的股票交易所。股票交易占到其收入的10%左右（ICE的股票交易收入比例是7%）。其大部分业务既不是基于股票，也不是基于交易，而且建立在其他证券和活动的基础之上。

One of its biggest operations is clearing — taking care of the contracts after trades are done. Its SwapClear division now clears 95 per cent of the global market in over-the-counter interest rate swaps (private interest rate contracts reached by banks). This is less exciting or visible than equity trading but bigger and more profitable; SwapClear often clears $1tn of swaps daily.

伦敦证交所最大的业务之一是清算业务——处理交易完成后的合约。它的SwapClear部门现在为全球95%的的场外利率互换（银行私下达成的利率合约）市场提供清算服务。这不像股票交易那么令人兴奋或令人瞩目，但规模更大，且利润更高。SwapClear每日的互换合约清算总额往往达到1万亿美元。

Derivatives clearing has another advantage over share trading: it takes a long time. A clearing house holds cash to cover the moves in the value of a contract over weeks or months. It is a steady money-earner that is far less exposed to competition than a stock exchange. Fees such as these, from derivatives clearing, data and financial indices, are valuable.

与股票交易相比，衍生品清算还有另一个优势：它需要很长时间。一家清算机构持有现金覆盖一份合约数周乃至数月的价值波动。这是一块稳定的盈利业务，遭遇的竞争远低于股票交易。衍生品清算、数据和金融指数等业务带来的手续费收入非常高。

The transformation of exchanges offers three lessons. First, regulation works. It does not always work as intended but it affects behaviour.

交易所的转型提供了3个教训。第一，监管是管用的。虽然它并不总是如预期那样有效，但它确实会影响行为。

US and European regulators encouraged stock exchange competition and, after the 2008 crisis, pushed banks to use clearing houses to curb risk. Exchanges altered course as their old business grew tougher and another one expanded.

美国和欧洲监管机构鼓励股票交易所展开竞争，并在2008年金融危机之后推动银行使用清算机构来遏制风险。交易所改变经营方向，因为它们过去的业务越来越难做，而另一块业务有所扩大。

Second, capitalism is highly adaptable. The world of stock exchanges was dominated for decades by entrenched institutions, particularly those in global financial centres such as London and New York. Changes in regulation and financial markets undermined that position so they adapted.

第二，资本主义具有高度的适应性。股票交易所世界几十年来由老牌机构（尤其是那些位于伦敦或纽约等全球金融中心的机构）主导。监管和金融市场的变化削弱了这种地位，因此它们进行了调整。

In some cases, such as the LSE’s, stock exchanges remodelled themselves behind the scenes into clearing and data operators. In others, futures exchanges such as the Chicago Mercantile Exchange outstripped stock exchanges in value or acquired them, as ICE has done. Within a decade, stock exchanges were absorbed into exchange groups that mostly do other things.

在某些情况下，股票交易所悄然变身为清算和数据运营商，比如伦敦证交所。在其他情况下，芝加哥商品交易所(CME)等期货交易所的价值超过股票交易所，或者收购了股票交易所，就像ICE所做的。在10年时间里，股票交易所被并入主要从事其他业务的交易所集团。

Last, traditions endure. Exchanges are largely but not wholly unrecognisable from the days of the buttonwood tree. Networks remain powerful — exchanging contracts through a hub rather making a multitude of bilateral deals creates economies of scale. This applies as much to the central clearing of interest rate swaps as to exchange-based share trading.

最后，传统经久不衰。与梧桐树时代相比，如今交易所已基本上（但并非完全）不可辨认。网络依然强大——通过交易中心交换合约，而非缔结大量双边协议，创造了规模效益。这不仅适用于在交易所进行的股票交易，也适用于利率互换合约的中央清算。

Stock exchanges remain exchanges, despite all the fragmentation and upheaval. Unlikely as it once seemed, they are still in business.

股票交易所依然是交易所，尽管发生了碎片化和动荡。尽管一度显得岌岌可危，但如今它们仍在运营。