The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the main regulator of the American markets, decided in the 1990s that a foreign stock exchange wishing to provide access to its market from the US (via computers installed on American soil) had to comply with the rules laid down by the SEC. Such a demand presupposed that all firms with stocks quoted on this exchange would be subject to the disclosure rules of the SEC. The upshot? No non-American stock exchanges are able to conduct business in America, at least not until the SEC shows more flexibility. The single exception is the DTB, Germany’s futures exchange. The DTB is regulated not by the SEC but rather by another regulatory agency, the Commodities Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). This is the case because the DTB quotes prices not on shares but on derivatives. And these contracts depend on the CFTC, not on the SEC. Yet it happens that transactions on index options are under the control of the SEC; they cannot be put up for sale by the DTB. How can an American investor buy (or sell) shares belonging to German firms? He has got to call his broker in New York, the broker calls a colleague in London, who goes on to transmit the order to a German broker, who winds up putting it on the market. So many intermediaries entail manifold complications.