London's stock market has put in a right royal performance during the record-breaking reign of Britain's Queen Elizabeth.
The market has produced close to double-digit annual returns in terms of both capital and income under Britain's longest-serving monarch.
When the Queen came to the throne in 1952, the top flight only had 30 companies and was known as the FTSE 30.
That index, which started life before the war in 1935, consisted mainly of large industrials, three of which are still in the Footsie - Rolls-Royce (LON:RR.), GKN (LON:GKN) and Imperial Tobacco (LON:IMT).
The FTSE 100 started in 1984 with a base value of 1,000 and now stands at 6248, having topped 7,000 in April this year.
It was conducted through so-called "open outcry" trading on a traditional stock exchange trading floor until 1986, when electronic trading launched as part of a market deregulation drive known as the Big Bang.
Share trading among retail investors has become more commonplace due to former Tory premier Margaret Thatcher's mass privatisation of state-owned corporations.
But it has not all been good news. The financial crash of 2008 sparked criticism that the Big Bang had relaxed the rules too much, leading to banking scandals and reckless lending.
Chief executive of The Share Centre, Richard Stone, said the stock market had prospered during the Queen's reign.
"There has been short-term volatility, but this was also the case when Queen Victoria acceded to the throne in 1837, so is nothing new, and the last 63 years demonstrate equities can provide good long term returns if investors can ride through that volatility," he said.
"Hopefully there will be many more years to come with Her Majesty as monarch, and the markets may enjoy more of the stability the country as a whole has seen during this time."