Seminar paper from the year 2006 in the subject Business economics - Investment and Finance, grade: 1,3, Anhalt University of Applied Sciences Köthen, course: International Banking ans Finance, language: English, abstract: The stock exchange market is one of the key mechanisms for attracting monetary ressources for investment, economy modernisation and stimulation of the production growth in a country. At the same time the world stock exchange markets can be a source of financial instability and even of macroeconomic and social shocks. Esspecialy volatible to economic shocks are the stock exchanges of transitional economies, such as Russia, which was characterised as a one of the most risky countries in early 90 ies. The transition of Russia from a plan to a market economy has caused increasing interest to stock exchanges as an important component of the stock market. Russian economists came to conclusion that stock exchange market is the nervous terminations of economy and of all spheres of the life of society. These nervous terminations react to the depth of the processes occuring in an organism, much earlier, than the organism itself. Therefore the stock exchange market is the lead indicator of what will occur in economy. But imperfection of the Russian legislation, absence of culture of corporate management, lacks in system of disclosing information and legal base demanding completion are the basic features of the exchange stock market in Russia. The purpose of my assigment, therefore, is to analyse the current competitive position of Russia on the world stock market, to reveal problems of modern Russian stock exchanges and to find out the reasons of their occurrence. The efficiency of the stock exchange in Russia will be assessed according to the models applied in the financial literature. In order to reach this target first we have to look at the theoretical aspects of the core essence and main functions of stock exchanges.