With shares in the London Stock Exchange hitting the dizzy heights of £13.92 ($27.56) — Nasdaq’s offer was £12.43 — the exchange is now on the reserve list for the Footsie 100.

If it’s promoted to that elite squadron, its stock would be picked up by all the tracker funds leading to further gains in value. It’s an enviable prospect and would probably ensure the hard-pressed exchange some respite from the constant challenges it has faced in recent years.

As if to emphasise the point, the LSE has just upgraded its technology platform. The new system allows trades to be executed in full in just 10 milliseconds and allows companies a much easier experience for trading in shares and other instruments.

Called TradElect, the new system is one in the eye for bankers’ darling, Project Turquoise, which is yet to be launched.

Here’s how the LSE describes TradElect :

TradElect, the Exchange’s brand new trading system is up and running. TradElect brings unprecedented levels of performance, enhanced functionality and new services to our markets whilst maintaining our exemplary record for reliability.

It allows our customers to trade on one of the fastest, most reliable and technologically advanced equity markets in the world.

Its introduction marks the final and most significant phase of the Exchange’s four-year system upgrade project – known as Technology Roadmap (TRM) - and now delivers a range of key functional and technical enhancements including;

* Increase the speed and efficiency of trading
* Provide the framework for the rapid development of new markets and asset classes
* Enhance the market structure to better support order routing, settlement and clearing
* Extend functionality for order handling, quote management and trade reporting.

These are surely the good times for the LSE and its doughty chief executive, Clara Furse, and chairman, Chris Gibson-Smith.

The Chairman of the London Stock Exchange, Christopher Gibson-Smith, recently gave an interview to The Times (London) considering a number of possible outcomes for the business going forward.

In the wake of the comprehensive defeat of the Nasdaq bid, what threat is posed by the new giant forming across the water in Paris between Euronext and the New York Stock Exchange?

“What’s going to happen”, says Gibson-Smith? “I don’t suppose they know. We watch it really carefully, but it’s not a short-term threat.”

He also dismisses any increased competition arising from Mifid, the new EU directive on financial services, and the prospect of Project Turquoise, a rival trading platform from a consortium of powerful banks. Mifid, he says, offers more opportunities to the LSE than dangers, and more of a threat to continental rivals. “They have tried it before and not achieved it. They might this time. We don’t [believe they will]. We feel confident in being able to deal with it.”

The Chairman points out that the LSE is growing trading volumes by 55 percent a year driven by algorithmic trading, which allows business to be conducted electronically at high speed. “[The system] is transforming capacity to use our transformed market”, he says. “I see a world awash with opportunities.”

However, on global markets, he’s more cautious, “There are some real national barriers in the way of achieving that.” And will the NYSE/Euronext giant come gunning for the LSE? “It’s filling column inches, but …”

Philosophical to the end, Christopher Gibson-smith opines, “There have never been, in my entire business career, fewer than five huge uncertainties that have to be dealt with”.

Whatever happens, it’s obvious the Chairman of the LSE does not intend to be caught napping.