Regional stock exchanges in Chicago, Boston and Cincinnati and electronic communications networks like Archipelago and Island trade some of the larger E.T.F.'s.
The Islands' trade went into a free-fall that would eventually see their UK market share drop from 45% in 1992 to less than 9% in 2009.
When Britain joined what was then the Common Market, in 1972, a clause in the accession treaty placed Jersey and Guernsey outside the EU for tax purposes, to protect the islands' trade in fresh flowers and perishable goods.
Before Tropical Storm Iselle hit Hawaii this summer, the system had intercepted the islands' trade winds bringing the same damp stillness that I remembered from childhood.
On the local markets, new listings are rare.In this section Island-hopping Down to the roots Governor's forced exit Chronic sickness Swing, swing together The new old danger A trigger-happy Fed Voting for welfare ReprintsThe ECSE is already set up for inter-island trading and could expand.
The biggest difference between my first and subsequent trips was the painstaking reconstruction of the former island trading post, Dejima, into a 3.8-acre village.
Llangefni has remained a bustling market centre, and livestock are brought from all parts of the island for trading every Wednesday and Thursday.
The cloves of the northern Moluccas and the nutmeg of the central islands were traded in Asia long before Europeans heard of the so-called Spice Islands.
Within little more than a decade the accessible commercial stands of sandalwood were depleted, but by the 1820s traders were again visiting the islands to trade for edible varieties of sea cucumber, the marine invertebrate also known as bêche-de-mer or trepang.
López de Legazpi, with the help of the Malayan sailor, explained to the tribes in Bohol that they were not Portuguese and that they had come to the islands to trade.
