At the beginning of the twenty-first century, the world financial markets, and institutions have new features, and are working in different environments and conditions. These are increasing the role of the financial sector in the world economy, integration of the financial markets and institutions, liberalization of related laws and regulations, increasing linkages between sub-segments of financial markets, computerizing of financial markets and institutions, and introducing new instruments and innovative derivatives. The majority of the above changes are considered positive developments in the world economy. However, some of the negative aspects are associated along with the above new conditions. One of the most critical changes is the increased linkage, which may lead to the transmission of high price volatility of stocks, currencies, and inflation, from one economy to another, and in turn may lead to financial crises at certain events and conditions similar to those which occured in 1987, 1989 and 1997. The financial crises are not confined to a financial market or a financial institution, or a country or a region. There are at present, no generally accepted arguments or explanations for the financial crises that occurred in the last century. The financial crises moved from one market to another, across geographical locations, as well as across segments of financial systems, including both developed and emerging markets.

The above features and conditions are creating new challenges; there is an urgent need, therefore, to examine various aspects of financial markets related to stability, risk, and activity, in order to find the most relevant environment and market mechanism that maymeet the conditions of stability, liquidity, and efficiency. This volume is devoted to exploring various aspects of this issue.

The findings of this book are based on legal aspects of the majority of the world jurisdictions, and the majority of the existing and new introduced practices to the world stock markets including the role of international commissions, and organizations in this regards. Examination of the stock market efficiency and stability presented in the sixth and seventh chapters is built on empirical investigations, opinions surveys of stock markets experts, and state of arts of the related empirical studies, official reports, and suggested recommendations and best practices. Finally, this book is an attempt to help prevent the next stock market crisis, or to understand how to deal with, in order to shorten the period of declining, shorting the period of recovering, and to reduce the effect of irrational trading during unstable trading.

Today, the financial sector may be considered as the most mature sector compared to other economic sectors in the Arab economy. It uses local as well as foreign currencies in matter of exchanges and in measuring value of investment. The financial sector offers services through the process of buying money, financial instruments and securities or financial services in certain situation, and then reselling these money or financial instruments or services in another situation. The institutions that provide such services are called intermediary financial institutions, while the places of selling and buying money and financial instruments are known as financial markets. Accordingly, the financial sector includes besides the national currency, two major parts, financial markets and financial institutions, which have different merits, functions and mechanisms. Thus, this book is devoted to the financial institutions besides the issue of national currency in the Arab economy.