The Nasdaq Iceland, formerly known as the Iceland Stock Exchange (ICEX) ( ), is a

stock exchange A stock exchange, securities exchange, or bourse is an exchange where stockbrokers and traders can buy and sell securities, such as shares of stock, bonds and other financial instruments. Stock exchanges may also provide facilities for ...

for Icelandic bonds and

equities Stocks (also capital stock, or sometimes interchangeably, shares) consist of all the shares by which ownership of a corporation or company is divided. A single share of the stock means fractional ownership of the corporation in proportion t ...

. Companies in sectors such as retail, fishing, transportation, banking and real estate are listed on the exchange. Because of the small size of the Icelandic economy many of the stocks traded on Nasdaq Iceland are relatively small and

illiquid In business, economics or investment, market liquidity is a market's feature whereby an individual or firm can quickly purchase or sell an asset without causing a drastic change in the asset's price. Liquidity involves the trade-off between the ...

History

The Iceland Stock Exchange (ICEX) was established in 1985 as a joint venture of several banks and brokerage firms on the initiative of the

Central Bank of Iceland The Central Bank of Iceland (, ) is the central bank or reserve bank of Iceland. It is owned by the Icelandic government, and is administered by a governor and a seven-member supervisory board, elected by the country's parliament following ea ...

. Trading began in 1986 in Icelandic

government bonds A government bond or sovereign bond is a form of bond issued by a government to support public spending. It generally includes a commitment to pay periodic interest, called coupon payments'','' and to repay the face value on the maturity da ...

with the central bank as the

market maker A market maker or liquidity provider is a company or an individual that quotes both a buy and a sell price in a tradable asset held in inventory, hoping to make a profit on the difference, which is called the ''bid–ask spread'' or ''turn.'' Thi ...

. The first

electronic trading system In finance, an electronic trading platform, also known as an online trading platform, is a computer software program that can be used to place orders for financial products over a network with a financial intermediary. Various financial products ...

was launched in 1989 and trading in the first equities started in 1991. Equities trading increased rapidly thereafter and in 1999 there were 75 listed companies on the stock exchange (51 on the main list and 24 on the growth list). A new law passed by the Icelandic parliament in 1998 required ICEX to be changed into a limited company with shareholders on 1 January 1999. It was later placed in a holding company, Eignarhaldsfélagið Verðbréfaþing hf. Among the shareholders were financial institutions, listed companies, pension funds and the Central Bank of Iceland. In 2000, the Iceland Stock Exchange joined NOREX (Nordic exchanges' cooperation framework) and the common trading system SAXESS was implemented. This reduced the isolation of the Icelandic market and increased the liquidity. Through a collaboration with the

Faroese Securities Market Faroese Securities Market () is a stock exchange in the Faroe Islands that was founded in 2000; the technical operation of the market is done by the Iceland Stock Exchange. The market allows trading is Faroe Island stocks Stocks are feet and ha ...

(VMF), Faroese bonds were listed on ICEX in 2003 and in June 2005, Atlantic Petroleum became the first Faroese company listed on the exchange. Nowadays, most Faroese companies are listed on

Nasdaq Copenhagen The Nasdaq Copenhagen, formerly known as the Copenhagen Stock Exchange (), is an international marketplace for Denmark, Danish securities, including shares, Bond (finance), bonds, treasury bills and notes, and financial Futures contract, future ...

and there are no longer any Faroese companies left on the Icelandic stock exchange. In 2006, OMX acquired ICEX and the name was changed to OMX Iceland. Following Nasdaq's acquisition of OMX in 2007, the name was changed again, first to Nasdaq OMX Iceland and later to just Nasdaq Iceland. In 2010, the trading system was also changed to Nasdaq's trading system,

INET Inet was an electronic trading platform based on a system developed by Instinet in the 1970s that merged with Island ECN in 2002 and was subsequently acquired by NASDAQ in 2005. Inet, like other electronic communication networks, was an order-pa ...

. In the mid-2000s, the banking sector made up an increasingly large part of the Icelandic stock market. In June 2008, six banks (

Kaupthing Bank Kaupthing Bank (, ) was a major international Icelandic bank, headquartered in Reykjavík, Iceland. It was taken over by the Icelandic government during the 2008–2011 Icelandic financial crisis and the domestic Icelandic-based operations were ...

Landsbanki Landsbanki (, ), also commonly known as Landsbankinn (, ) was one of the largest Icelandic commercial banks; it failed as part of the 2008–2011 Icelandic financial crisis when its subsidiary sparked the Icesave dispute. On October 7, 2008, t ...

, Glitnir,

Straumur Investment Bank ALMC hf., formerly Straumur Investment Bank hf. (), is a regional investment bank headquartered in Reykjavík, Iceland. Founded in 1986 as ''Hlutabréfasjóðurinn'' and rebranded as Straumur in 2004, the bank initially survived the financial t ...

, Exista and Spron) accounted for 87% of the weight of the

OMXI15 The OMX Iceland 15 (OMXI15, formerly OMXI10, OMXI8 and OMXI6) is a stock market index for the largest and most traded stocks on the Nasdaq Iceland stock exchange. It is a price return and capitalization-weighted index. The base date for the index ...

index. As a consequence, the stock market collapsed during the Icelandic financial crisis in 2008. Kaupthing, Landsbanki and Glitnir were taken under state control by the Financial Supervisory Authority (FME) and trading in the stock market was suspended for three successive trading days on 9, 10 and 13 October. When trading resumed on 14 October 2008, the OMXI15 index closed down 77% compared with the closing level on 8 October 2008, while the broader OMXIPI index was down 67%. By the end of 2007, the total market value of the listed shares on Nasdaq Iceland was 2,570 billion ISK. By the end of 2009, that number had dropped to just 208 billion ISK and only 10 companies remained listed on the Nasdaq Iceland main list. The liquidity had also dried up and the turnover went from 3,122 billion ISK in 2007 to just over 50 billion ISK in 2009. In the 2010s, the turnover and the number of listed companies on Nasdaq Iceland increased again. In 2021, the turnover exceeded 1,000 billion ISK for the first time since the financial crisis and the number of companies on the main list had doubled to 20.

Listed companies

As of 18 March 2025, the following 28 stocks are listed on the Nasdaq Iceland main market.

References

External links

Official website
{{Authority control Financial services companies established in 1985 Companies of Iceland Stock exchanges in Europe

Iceland Iceland is a Nordic countries, Nordic island country between the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic and Arctic Oceans, on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge between North America and Europe. It is culturally and politically linked with Europe and is the regi ...

Nasdaq Nordic 1985 establishments in Iceland

History

Listed companies

See also

References

External links