In Turkey, share trading stops for lunch. In the Czech Republic many deals are done away from the exchange, on the phone, in the clubby world of brokers.
These quirks in the way stocks are traded used to be a feature of the world’s mature markets, such as in the US and western Europe.
They were swept aside with the advent of electronic trading. Now, most of the communication between investment managers and brokers is no longer done on the phone and is handled through electronic messages routed in and out of exchanges. That same technological revolution is transforming the way shares, derivatives and bonds are traded in emerging markets. That, in turn, is making it easier for investors to access them.