Price volatility and the basic economic functions of the Stock Ex- change

The paper is focused to the fact that, after the outbreak of the financial crisis, the Stock Exchange has shown a remarkable growth in price volatility, thus adding to the risk factors which discourage the end-users (households and companies) from entering the market, while increasing at the same time its attractiveness to day tra- ders, program traders and to banks too. It is suggested that a series of fixings should be introduced instead of or alongside the continuous auction trading with a view to providing a better matching of sell and buy orders to the advantage of long-term in- vestors.