People want to go to well known place. It’s obvious. In Tokyo there’re some well known spots which are actually very little notified that we can enter just as a tourist. Tokyo Stock Exchange is one of it. The place is widely famous and I think you might see it on TV news programs. But sadly there’re very few people, always. The reason is just people don’t know we can even enter and moreover, with free of fee. In this article I report a short tour of Tokyo Stock Exchange.
Location
Tokyo Stock Exchange is located in Kabuto-cho, Nihonbashi, once the center district of finance. Electric trading has been developed and then now many financial company had moved to other places.
Access
Kayabacho stn of Tozai line… 5 min walk from exit 10
Nihombashi stn of Asakusa line… 5 min walk from exit D2
Kayabacho stn of Hibiya line… 7 min walk from exit 7
Address: 2-1 Kabuto-cho, Nihombashi, Chuo-ku, Tokyo
Building overview
Visual of the building from front side is very famous in Japan. The building was built in 1985. Design of the building is old enough but looks modern especially the walls.
Beside the building you can see stylish old-fashioned cornerstone. By the way JPX means Japan Exchange Group.
Let’s get inside
All tourists have to enter from the west entrance. As you enter you will be handed a visitor card.
Document archive
On the right side right after you get inside, there’s a document archive corner. Though the materials are all written in Japanese of course but you can see English scripts and explanation. Displayed materials are all valuable, such as ancient stock certificates, ledgers old exchange systems.
The stock on the picture is The south Manchuria Railway Company, located in China currently, which was under leased territory of Empire of Japan at that time in the era of WW2.
The highlight of the tour: Market center
This is definitely the highlight of tour. You would have seen this on some Bloomberg programs. NYSE in New York, and TSE in Japan. Here no sound and inorganic, there’s only dynamism of economic flow.
But actually in here there’s no more stock exchanging. Nowadays real trading is processed at a data center in another place in Tokyo. What is the purpose of this place right now then?
To say the truth this market center is just monitoring market to check if there’s no abnormal trading.
Ticker is trademark of TSE. It displays going round and round current market prices. The speed of round is corresponding with trade activeness. That’s why I recommend to be here around 11:30, when the market is going lunch break. You will see the movement slowing down.
The bell
This bell is used when the first trading session of a year. As I saw it near from, it looks smaller than I expected.
Media center
There’re some studios for broadcasting.
Stock price monitor
This is another famous shot. News programs often picture this screen so the surface is processed anti-reflective.
When I enter the market place I found a news program was about to start.
Stock trading simulators
Unfortunately the service was temporarily closed when I was there but usually we can enjoy trading simulation game.
Summary
Great location, free of fee, silent, can gain knowledge, extremely famous but there’s barely tourists.
Why don’t you step into Tokyo Stock Exchange?
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