Section 12 of the Exchange Act provides that an issuer may register a class of securities on an exchange by filing with the Commission and the exchange an application which discloses pertinent information concerning the issuer and its affairs, including information in regard to the issuer's business, capital structure, the terms of its securities, the persons who manage or control its affairs, the remuneration paid to its officers and directors, the allotment of options, bonuses and profitsharing plans, and financial statements certified by independent accountants.

Form 10 is the form used for registration by most commercial and industrial companies. There are specialized forms for certain types of securities, such as voting trust certificates, certificates of deposit and securities of foreign governments.

Section 13 requires issuers having securities registered on an exchange to file periodic reports keeping current the information furnished in the application for registration. These periodic reports include annual reports, semiannual reports, and current reports. The principal annual report form is Form 10-K which is designed to keep up to date the information furnished in Form 10. Semiannual reports required to be furnished on Form 9-K are devoted chiefly to furnishing mid-year financial data. Current reports on Form 8-K are required to be filed for each month in which any of certain specified events have occurred such as changes in control of the registrant, important acquisitions or dispositions of assets, the institution or termination of important legal proceedings and important changes in the issuer's capital securities or in the amount thereof outstanding. Statistics Relating to Registration of Securities on Exchanges

As of June 30, 1959, a total of 2,236 issuers had 3,808 classes of securities listed and registered on national securities exchanges, of which 2,631 were classified as stocks and 1,177 as bonds. 1,294 issuers had 1,512 stock issues and 1,124 bond issues listed and registered on the New York Stock Exchange. Thus, 58 percent of the issuers, 57 percent of the stock issues and 95 percent of the bond issues were on the New York Stock Exchange.

During the 1959 fiscal year, 73 issuers listed and registered securities for the first time on a national securities exchange, while registration of all securities of 73 issuers was terminated. The total number of applications for registration of classes of securities on national securities exchanges filed during the 1959 fiscal year was 203.

The following table shows the number of annual, semiannual, and current reports filed during the fiscal year by issuers having securities listed and registered on national securities exchanges. The table also shows the number of reports filed under section 15 (d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 by issuers obligated to file reports by reason

of having publicly offered securities effectively registered under the Securities Act of 1933. The securities of such issuers are traded generally in the over-the-counter markets. As of June 30, 1959, there were 1,503 such issuers, including 247 also registered under the Investment Company Act of 1940.

Number of annual and other periodic reports filed by issuers under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 during the fiscal year ended June 30, 1959

MARKET VALUE OF SECURITIES TRADED ON EXCHANGES

The market value on December 31, 1958, of all stocks and bonds admitted to trading on one or more stock exchanges in the United States was approximately $419,585,963,000.

1 Bonds on the New York Stock Exchange included 50 U.S. Government and New York State and City issues with $77,690,873,000 aggregate market value.

The New York Stock Exchange and American Stock Exchange figures were reported by those exchanges. There is no duplication of issues between them. The figures for all other exchanges are for the net number of issues appearing only on such exchanges, excluding the many issues on them which were also traded on one or the other of the New York exchanges. The number of issues as shown excludes those suspended from trading and a few others for which quotations were not available. The number and market value as of December

31, 1958, of preferred and common stocks separately was as follows:

1 Issues admitted to unlisted trading privileges only or listed on exempt exchanges.

The New York Stock Exchange has reported aggregate market values of all stocks thereon monthly since December 31, 1924, when the figure was $27.1 billion. The aggregate market value rose to $89.7 billion in 1929, declined to $15.6 billion in 1932, and was $298.8 billion in June 1959. The American Stock Exchange has reported December 31 totals annually since 1936. Aggregates for stocks exclusively on the remaining exchanges have been compiled as of December 31 annually by the Commission since 1948.

Share values on exchanges, in billions of dollars

1 Total values 1936-47 inclusive are for the New York Stock Exchange and the American Stock Exchange

only.
As reported by the New York Stock Exchange and estimated for all others.

reached in 1932, and a Indices turned downShare volumes on the ex

At the time of passage of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, stock prices were rising from their low point, substantial recovery occurred through 1936. ward with the stock market decline in 1937. changes dropped from 962 million in 1936 to 221 million in 1942 and dollar volumes thereof from $23.6 billion in 1936 to $4.3 billion in 1942. Thereafter, recovery set in. For the calendar year 1958, the exchange turnover reached 1.4 billion shares with $38.4 billion dollar volume of sales, and for the first 6 months of 1959, the turnover

reached nearly a billion shares with over $28 billion dollar volume. The number of stocks listed on the registered exchanges fell from 2,961 in 1937 to 2,584 in 1945, and recovered to 2,643 on June 30, 1959. Growth of the issuers is reflected by the increase in their outstanding shares as reported below:

Net totals of unlisted shares on all exchanges and of shares listed on the exempted exchanges have not been compiled prior to 1943. December 31.

Shares listed on the New York Stock Exchange reached half a billion in 1926, 1 billion in 1929, 2 billion in 1948, and 5 billion in 1958. A further increase to 5.46 billion shares listed on this Exchange during the first 6 months of 1959 brings the total shares available for trading on all exchanges to around 7.5 billion as of June 30, 1959. Assets of Domestic Companies with Common Stocks on Exchanges

The assets of all domestic companies having common stocks on the stock exchanges were roughly equal to the $291.4 billion market value of such common stocks on December 31, 1958. The equivalence owes to the preponderance of industrial stocks on the exchanges; it is not unusual for industrial stocks to sell for as much as or more than reported assets. The assets included about $280.8 billion for domestic companies with common stocks listed on registered exchanges and $11.4 billion for domestic companies with common stocks unlisted on the exchanges or listed on the exempted exchanges. The $280.8 billion listed aggregate included $266 billion on the New York Stock Exchange, $9.8 billion on the American Stock Exchange, and

New York Stock Exchange "Fact Book, 1959" supplies this figure for 1957 including some fiscal years ending in 1958. Figures for the other exchanges are for the most part as reported around December 31, 1958.

$5 billion exclusively on regional exchanges. The $11.4 billion unlisted and exempted aggregates included $8.2 billion on the American Stock Exchange and $3.2 billion exclusively on regional exchanges. The assets represent a conglomerate of individual and consolidated company reports and various treatments of such matters as reserves for depreciation.

Foreign Stock on Exchanges

The market value on December 31, 1958, of all shares and certificates representing foreign stocks on the stock exchanges was reported at about $12.5 billion, of which $11.1 billion represented Canadian and $1.4 billion represented other foreign stocks. The market values of the entire Canadian stock issues were included in these aggregates. Most of the other foreign stocks were represented by American depositary receipts or American shares, only the outstanding amounts of which were used in determining market values.

Comparative Over-the-Counter Statistics

Annual over-the-counter transactions of as much as $200 billion United States Government bonds, centered in the offices of 5 banks and 12 specializing dealers, are about 5 times the total bond and stock volumes on all the stock exchanges, and earn for the over-the-counter industry the distinction of being the world's largest securities market. Government bonds have in the past been actively traded on stock exchanges, reaching $2.9 billion per annum on the New York Stock Exchange in the 1919-20 price recovery, but the last significant Exchange volume was reported 20 years ago, in 1939, and current volumes on the Exchange are around $100,000 per annum.

Securities representing upward of $50 billion State and local government debt are, with few exceptions," sold only over the counter. These bonds are usually issued in serial form, with a comparatively small amount for each maturity date, and have a specialized market owing to their tax-exemption features.

Corporate bond sales on the stock exchanges are only about $1.5 billion per annum, much less than those over-the-counter.

6

The over-the-counter potential for dealing in stocks is enormous, since there are perhaps a million corporations whose shares might come into the market. However, less than 1 percent of these corporations appear to have the size and share distribution to command a continuing public market for their stocks. The following over-the

There is activity on the New York Stock Exchange in New York City Transit 38 of 1980, and on the American Stock Exchange in Chicago Transit Authority 348 of 1978. U.S. Treasury Department "Statistics of Income" reported 924,961 corporation income tax returns for 1956-57, an increase of 82,836 over 1955-56. About 8,500 of the returns accounted for 75 percent of the $949 billion total reported assets. There have been well over 100,000 new incorporations per annum over the past decade and this rate nearly doubled in the first 6 months of 1959 upon passage of laws granting certain tax elections to corporations with not over 10 shareholders.