Organizational and legal problems of the functioning of the stock market of Ukraine

The presented article examines the problems of formation and development of stock exchange business in Ukraine during the last decade. The variety of scientific and normative views on the definition of the stock market is indicated, as a result of which a conclusion is made about the correctness of a broader perception of this concept, namely as legal relationships of exchange participants on placement, circulation, accounting of securities and derivatives. Some statistical information on the current state of the stock market of Ukraine is analyzed, which shows the similarity of the movement of indices of stock exchanges of Ukraine and world countries, positive dynamics of the UX index compared to last year, reduction of the total number of exchange organizations in Ukraine, which should also be assessed positively. In general, there is a tendency to develop stock relations in Ukraine, which is, however, quite slow. Factors due to which there are obstacles to the sustainable functioning of the country’s stock market, which do not allow to effectively perform its functions of capital allocation and constant investment in the economy are considered. Among them: significant dependence of the Ukrainian stock market on the negative impact of global external factors (pandemic, armed conflicts, political changes, etc.); too high level of capitalization of fuel and energy companies, which leads to the uniformity of exchange goods (relevant stocks); the impossibility of serious competition of securities of Ukrainian companies with foreign «blue chips» presented on the Ukrainian Stock Exchange; poor awareness of potential investors about the possibilities of investing in securities as well as the presence of biased information about potential objects of investment in the stock market of the country; high level of stock market manipulation and violations of investors’ rights, which leads to investors replacing national platforms for stock investments with foreign ones. There is the conclusion about the multilateral issues on becoming of effective stock market exchange relationships in Ukraine, the solution of which should begin with the improvement of its legal regulation using, first of all, the economic-legal toolkit.