Maybe the UK isn’t really the rundown backwater it seems to be on a grey winter’s day with a chill in the air and public sector strikes on the ground; or, at least, not yet. Even so, the sense of decline is palpable and this extends to the City in general and to London’s stock market in particular.
It’s not just that the number of listed securities is in decline. Indeed, depending on how you look at it, the numbers haven’t actually dropped. In the 1960s, approaching 4,000 UK and Irish companies had a listing on the London Stock Exchange (LSE). By the early 2000s, that number was down to about 1,500 (although another 1,000 or so had a quotation on Aim). That spelled decline. Yet by contrast, today the LSE claims listings for more than 4,500 equity instruments (although about 2,400 of those are exchange-traded funds). Throw in listings for another 11,000 bonds plus various species of securities exotica and you might have the impression of a thriving market.