What is a trade exchange and are they reputable or not?
I think this is off topic, but here is a stab: So these are cashless.  It could be a way to smooth out the harsh reality of capitalism (I overproduced my product, I have more capacity than I can sell) and I can trade those good to other capitalists who similarly poorly planned production or capacity. Therefore the market for a system like is limited to businesses that do not plan well.  Business that plan production or capacity to levels they can already sell for cash do not need a private system to offload goods. Alternatives to such a system include: (I don't know how many businesses are really in this over production / over capacity state.  If my assumption that it isn't many is wrong, my answer is garbage.) This is a bartering system with a brokerage.  I think we have historically found that common currencies create more trade and economic activity because the value of the note in your pocket, which is the same type of note in my pocket, is common and understood.  Exchange rates typically slow down trade.  (There are many other reasons to have different currency or notes on a global sale, but the exchange certainly is a hurdle to clear.) This brokerage is essentially adding a new currency (in a grand metaphor).  And that new currency is only spendable on their brokerage, which is of limited use to society as a whole, assuming that society as a whole isn't a participating member of that brokerage. I can't really think of why this type of exchange is better than the current system we have now.  I wouldn't invest in this as a business, or invest in this as a person looking for opportunity.
"To expand on keshlam's answer: A direct feed does not involve a website of any kind.  Each exchange publishes its order/trade feed(s) onto a packet network where subscribers have machines listening and reacting. Let's call the moment when a trade occurs inside an exchange's matching engine ""T0"".  An exchange then publishes the specifics of that trade as above, and the moment when that information is first available to subscribers is T1.  In some cases, T1 - T0 is a few microseconds; in other (notorious) cases, it can be as much as 100 milliseconds (100,000x longer). Because it's expensive for a subscriber to run a machine on each exchange's network -- and also because it requires a team of engineers devoted to understanding each exchange's individual publication protocols -- it seems unlikely that Google pays for direct access.  Instead Google most likely pays another company who is a subscriber on each exchange around the world (let's say Reuters) to forward their incoming information to Google.  Reuters then charges Google and other customers according to how fast the customer wants the forwarded information.  Reuters has to parse the info it gets at T1, check it for errors, and translate it into a format that Google (and other customers) can understand.  Let's say they finish all that work and put their new packets on the internet at time T2. Then the slow crawl across the internet begins.  Some 5-100 milliseconds later your website of choice gets its pre-processed data at time T3.  Even though it's preprocessed, your favorite website has to unpack the data, store it in some sort of database, and push it onto their website at time T4. A sophisticated website might then force a refresh of your browser at time T4 to show you the new information.  But this forced refresh involves yet another slow crawl across the internet from where your website is based to your home computer, competing with your neighbor's 24/7 Netflix stream, etc.  Then your browser (with its 83 plugins and banner ads everywhere) has to refresh, and you finally see the update at T5. So, a thousand factors come into play, but even assuming that Google is doing the most expensive and labor-intensive thing it can and that all the networks between you and Google and the exchange are as short as they can be, you're not going to hear about a trade -- even a massive, market-moving trade -- for anywhere from 500 milliseconds to 5 seconds after T0.  And in a more realistic world that time will be 10-30 seconds. This is what Google calls ""Realtime"" on that disclaimer page, because they feel they're getting that info to you as fast as they possibly can (for free). Meanwhile, the computers that actually subscribe to an exchange heard about the trade way back at time T1 and acted on that information in a few microseconds.  That's almost certainly before T2 and definitely way way before T3.  The market for a particular instrument could change direction 5 times before Google even shows the first trade. So if you want true realtime access, you must subscribe to the exchange feed or, as keshlam suggests, sign up with a broker that provides its own optimized market feeds to you. (Note: This is not an endorsement of trading through brokers.)" I believe that it's not possible for the public to know what shares are being exchanged as shorts because broker-dealers (not the exchanges) handle the shorting arrangements.  I don't think exchanges can even tell the difference between a person selling a share that belongs to her vs. a share that she's just borrowing.  (There are SEC regulations requiring some traders to declare that trades are shorts, but (a) I don't think this applies to all traders, (b) it only applies to the sells, and (c) this information isn't public.) That being said, you can view the short interest in a symbol using any of a number of tools, such as Nasdaq's here.  This is often cited as an indicator similar to what you proposed, though I don't know how helpful it would be from an intra-day perspective. The lowest cost way to trade on an exchange is to trade directly on the exchange. I can't speak to the LSE, but in the US, there is a mandated firewall between the individual and the exchange, the broker; therefore, in the US, one would have to start a business and become a broker. If that process is too costly, the broker or trade platform that permits individuals to trade with the lowest commissions is the next lowest. When you are placing an order with an online broker you should already know what exchange or exchanges that stock trades on. For example if you look up under Yahoo Finance: Notice how News Corp is traded both on the ASX and the Nasdaq. The difference is the shares traded on the ASX have the extension .AX, that is how you know the difference between them. When you are putting orders in with your online broker you will need to select the exchange you wish your order to go to (if your broker allows trading on multiple exchanges). So you should always know which exchange your order goes to. I don't know if vanilla beans are traded on any organized exchange, and if they are, it's probably extremely obscure and very hard to access without having both of a lot of money and in-country connections.  Edit: no, they're not. So there is no real way to short them.  https://www.ft.com/content/e0e2fc16-28db-11e7-bc4b-5528796fe35c?mhq5j=e2 The NYSE is not the only exchange in the world (or even the only one in the USA). Amazingly, the London stock exchange works on London time, the Shanghai exchange works on Shanghai time and the Australian stock exchange works on Sydney time. In addition futures exchanges work overnight. I just finished a high frequency trading project. Individuals can do it, but you need a lot of capital. You can get a managed server in Times Square for $1500/month, giving you access to 90% of the US exchanges that matter, their data farms are within 3 milliseconds of distance (latency). You can also get more servers in the same building as the exchanges, if you know where to look ;) thats all I can divulge good luck Most investors vote with their wallets. I expect ZERO glitches from a trading platform. If someone was actually causing trades to fail maliciously, their reputation would immediately suffer and their business would dry up over night.  You can't just play dumb and not respond to a button click. I can watch and replay the traffic I'm sending out to their server and see if they are responding to verify this. If their system goes down and has no redundancy, that is their fault and opens them to lawsuits. No trading platform could withstand scrutiny from its users if it was dishonest in the scenario you imagine.