COMMENTS:
Oh shit that makes us an even bigger target now.
by isay on Sun Dec 03, 06 4:43pm
[+]
^From^whom^? 
London overtook New York in 3 out of the 4 biggest money markets a relatively long time ago, didnt it? I would imagine 9/11 didnt help instill investors with confidence, though London has the July bombings of course. They werent directed at such a financially crucial target though I guess.
Perhaps the terrorists ARE winning the "war against terror" after all?
Voted : I'm not surprised....
I think it's another casualty of the War on Terror (TM), that not many foreign companies want to be seen doing business in the U.S. of A.
Voted : Sarbanes-Oxley
Sarbanes-Oxley pushed the American market over the edge. Who wants to list in the US when they have to shackle themselves to a 100lb weight to do so? Now even some of the Democrats are looking to scale back Sarbanes-Oxley. If it scaled back significantly, NYC will once again be top dog.
BTW, even before Sarbanes-Oxley London had a relatively free financial market compared to NYC.
^Wasn't Sarbanes-Oxley a response to Enron and Arthur Anderson fraud? Investor confidence is important enough to financial markets.
really? wow. where did you read that? in 2004, 77 cents of ever dollar transaction in the world market went through the new york stock and commodities exchange. in 2005 i think it was 83 cents of every dollar. interesting factoid. i'd love to read more about it. can you post the links. cool deal, thanks.
i think you're basing this solely on ipo's. in which case, london had listed 4 of the top 25. sarbanes-oxley has nothing to do with it. sarbanes-oxley is simply a measure put in place of fiscal accountability in public trading (e.g. so that companies don't over-state earnings). thats a good thing. i think the headline of this ballot is a bit over-reaching.
Sarbanes-Oxley isn't the reason, but predatory business interests want it repealed because it does prevent some of the criminality that was associated with the Enron era. These scumbags want to bring back the "good old days" of out of control criminal corporate behavior.
And, of course, the idiot libertarians are in favor of that.
Morons.
never mind, found it.
The Spitzer Mystery
New York Sun Editorial
December 1, 2006
The big mystery in Albany is which Eliot Spitzer is going to show up in January to take over as governor. Is it going to be the hard-left Eliot Spitzer or the centrist Eliot Spitzer? The poser arises following a recent interview that Mr. Spitzer granted to his biographer, Brooke Masters, that was published in the Financial Times of London. In the first part of the interview, issued Monday, Mr. Spitzer was said by the newspaper to have "hit out at efforts by figures in the Bush administration and business to roll back corporate accountability reforms imposed in the wake of financial scandals such as Enron."
The FT reported that Mr. Spitzer "pronounced himself suspicious of the push to revamp the Sarbanes-Oxley corporate accountability rules." That is the hard-left Mr. Spitzer — even Senator Smoot Schumer and Mayor Bloomberg wrote an oped in the Wall Street Journal earlier this month saying Sarbanes-Oxley "needs to be re-examined" as part of the effort to keep London from surpassing New York as the world's financial capital. In a second report on the interview, Mr. Spitzer is quoted as saying, "I'll work to make sure the financial companies stay here," adding, "We're going to look at the tax code to make sure we're not pushing capital elsewhere."
That was the centrist Mr. Spitzer.
Mr. Spitzer's two personalities have played out through his history as politician and as the state attorney general. The hard-left Mr. Spitzer made Wall Street a target for his enforcement operations. But the centrist Mr. Spitzer disposed of cases not, for the most part, by sending businessmen to jail or by indicting entire companies and shutting them down, but rather by reaching settlement agreements that the hard-left critics complained were only a slap on the wrist.
The contradictions are evident in the press coverage Mr. Spitzer garnered. Mr. Spitzer won adulation from the hard-left Nation, whose Web site recommended him as a running mate for Senator Kerry in 2004 by saying that Mr. Spitzer is "the single most effective battler against corporate abuses in either political party," "a watchdog on Wall Street and a fearless advocate for consumers" with "a great track record as a defender of women's rights." But Mr. Spitzer also got good press in the conservative Weekly Standard, which ran a cover article depicting him as Theodore Roosevelt, reporting that "There is no Democrat more in love with the conservative theory of the investor class" and quoting the money manager Jim Cramer describing Mr. Spitzer as "the most Republican Democrat I know … pro-growth."
As the report released yesterday by the bipartisan, nongovernmental Committee on Capital Markets Regulation makes clear, how this is all resolved is going to make a big difference to the American economy and especially to New York's. Wall Street is the engine of the New York City and New York State economy, and if the global finance industry moves to London and Hong Kong, this city and this state will be in big trouble. Rep. Gregory Meeks, a Queens Democrat, has taken up the cause of easing the regulatory burdens of audit compliance for small companies under Sarbanes-Oxley.
The committee whose report was released yesterday has impeccable credentials; it includes, among others, John Thornton, formerly of Goldman Sachs; Ira Millstein of Weil, Gotshal & Manges; and Glenn Hubbard of Columbia Business School. Mr. Spitzer financed his gubernatorial campaign with contributions from the city's finance and real estate communities but also from the trial lawyers. They — and all New Yorkers — are waiting to see which Mr. Spitzer will show up to govern.
so has it overtaken or is it that some believe that if we don't do away with corporate responsibility, it will overtake it? looks like the latter. kind of a bummer that rules put in place to keep corporations honest are seen as a hinderance. what does that say about the global market? hmmmmm.
it was an op-ed piece in the new york times.
New York Isn’t the World’s Undisputed Financial Capital
Heather Timmons, 10/27/06
At a black-tie event this summer, some of the world’s most powerful bankers and business executives gathered for a toast:
“We are the international finance and business capital of the world, the world’s greatest global financial center, without question,” the mayor told the assembled crowd.
But that was not Michael R. Bloomberg talking. The city was not New York — it was London.
Even as the Dow Jones industrial average reaches new highs and Wall Street companies report robust profits, by some measures New York’s long-held crown as the financial capital of the world may be slipping.
London, whose lord mayor, David Brewer, made the summertime boast at the city’s annual merchants and bankers dinner, has had a heady resurgence in banking and lending.
In recent years, its stock market
has attracted a growing number of companies that once would have sought to list in the United States. And London is drawing an increasing tide of hedge fund assets.
Other financial centers are growing, too: Chicago will be the home of the world’s largest derivatives market when the Chicago Mercantile Exchange and the Chicago Board of Trade merge, while Hong Kong is poised to be the biggest market for initial public offerings this year, with today’s pricing of the huge offering of the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China.
The possibility that New York is losing ground has raised alarms in Washington and in Mr. Bloomberg’s office.
“There’s a genuine recognition that we need to make some changes,” said Laure Aubuchon, head of international business development for the New York City Economic Development Corporation. Winning financial business is “so important to New York City,” she said. The financial services industry makes up 9 percent of the city’s work force and provides 31 percent of the tax base, she said.
The rise of London has been particularly notable as a reflection of its geography. Some of the most rapidly developing markets and fastest-growing companies can be found in Asia and Russia, which are within time zones that can do business easily with London but not with New York.
“In the 1980s and 1990s, large transactions did not get done without the United States capital markets,” said Michael Cole-Fontayn, a managing director with the Bank of New York in London. That is no longer true, he said.
“The European and Asian capital markets are becoming deeper and more liquid by the day,” he said. “You can get a $5 billion stock global depository receipt offering or a $10 billion privatization satisfied outside the United States S.E.C.-registered markets.”
TMK, a Russian pipe manufacturer, hopes to raise $1 billion in a November public offering. The company was approached by the New York Stock Exchange but chose to list on the London Stock Exchange.
London “is the world’s biggest financial center and very internationally flavored,” Vladimir Shmatovich, the chief financial officer, said in a telephone interview. And, he said, London is a closer flight to Moscow.
Of course, Wall Street banks dominate London and have benefited from doing business with the new wealth of Russia, Asia and the Middle East. But because the banks do a growing amount of business outside New York, the city misses out on some of the taxes, the financial services jobs and the jobs that support those jobs.
Beyond its location, London is attracting investors and companies because of a perception that regulatory scrutiny is more burdensome in the United States than in London. At the same time, while London does not use the euro, that common currency has helped bring depth to the capital markets of Europe, benefiting London.
“At the moment, people are still arguing New York versus London,” said Shaun Springer, the head of Napier Scott, a headhunting firm based in London that specializes in trading jobs. In five years, he predicts, “there will be a real, visible gap,” with London taking the lead.
So far, the only financial arena where New York is clearly being surpassed is initial public offerings. This year, through the end of September, companies raised £17.9 billion ($33.2 billion) in initial public offerings on London’s exchanges. In New York, initial public offerings raised $26.5 billion through September. By the end of 2006, more than $40 billion will be raised in Hong Kong, thanks to two oversize bank offerings. Hong Kong’s leadership in public offerings is not expected to extend to 2007, when the battle between London and New York will be fiercer than ever.
Other trends seem to favor London. Syndicated lending grew 54 percent in Europe in 2005, but just 15 percent in the United States, according to Thomson Financial. Hedge fund assets in Europe grew 80 percent from 2003 to 2005, versus 28 percent in the United States, according to International Financial Services London, which promotes British banking business.
High oil prices have in the past meant a flood of money from the Middle East into the United States. But cash-rich Middle Eastern families and governments are now looking to invest in Europe or Asia — through London or another financial center, rather than through New York.
Not surprisingly, there are few people in New York willing to acknowledge London’s superiority.
“I laugh, because if you were to dial back to the late 1980s, Tokyo was going to rule the world,” said Ms. Aubuchon of the city’s Economic Development Corporation. “I would never underestimate the power of Americans, when they get annoyed at being put down, to come roaring back.”
To assist that comeback, Mr. Bloomberg’s office is spending $600,000 on a study by the McKinsey consulting firm on the issue.
Many executives outside the United States say they could probably save them the time and trouble — the biggest problem is that it has become just too forbidding to do business in New York.
The Sarbanes-Oxley Act, which imposed stricter rules on corporate controls, “is just one problem of many,” said Alan Yarrow, vice chairman of the German bank Dresdner Kleinwort, who is based in London. Others include the Patriot Act, the Department of Homeland Security and the perception that America does not welcome outsiders, he said.
“Getting people into the country is becoming a problem,” Mr. Yarrow said. “You have to have a situation where clients can come and see you.”
Many foreign companies and executives have a “fear of the United States: of litigation, of Sarbanes-Oxley, of the reach of the S.E.C., of the disclosure requirements and penalties associated with false disclosure,” said Mr. Cole-Fontayn of the Bank of New York.
The New York markets, meanwhile, have not been lobbying hard overseas over these issues, some executives say.
The London Stock Exchange “came after us very aggressively and did a good job of selling themselves,” said Christian Hogg, the chief executive of Chi-Med in Hong Kong, a Hutchison Whampoa division that began trading in May on London’s small capitalization stock market division, AIM.
Nasdaq, however, never contacted the company, Mr. Hogg said.
And companies pay more to list in the United States. A study by the consulting firm Oxera that was commissioned this summer by the City of London found that investment banks’ underwriting fees for listing a company in Europe were about half those for listing in the United States.
But listing in London has had its challenges, Mr. Hogg added. Executives have to work hard to get brokers and analysts to notice their companies. “Nothing is guaranteed on Day 1 on AIM. It requires a lot of money,” he said.
Company executives are not the only ones in finance choosing not to come to New York. Stricter entry rules after Sept. 11, 2001, mean that some of the world’s banking talent that would have gravitated to New York is going elsewhere.
“Just getting into America, even if you’re British, is an issue,” Mr. Springer of Napier Scott said. “We’ve had candidates that arrived for an interview, were told they couldn’t leave a room in the airport and were put on the next plane back,” he said. Consequently, America is not experiencing the same explosion in specialized trading products that London is, he said. London, on the other hand, has a more open visa and work permit policy, he said.
Mark Warms, the global head of sales and marketing for FXall, a large foreign exchange platform for institutional customers, said, “Certainly, you have to argue that London is the most culturally diverse financial center in the world.”
London’s talent pool may be international and its finance business growing, but newly arrived Wall Street bankers may be astonished by some of its local traditions: most of the city’s bars, for example, close at 11 p.m., and most restaurants stop serving food around 10 p.m. Food delivery is still a rarity. Sending a FedEx package after 6 p.m. is difficult and the subway closes at midnight.
Still, London’s growing financial business has put the end to one British tradition that few will mourn: “the food,” said Stanley Fink, the former chief executive and chairman of the Man Group, the investment and hedge fund giant. London has gone from “one of the poorer places in the world to eat to one of the best,” he said.
There has been an explosion in high-end dining in London. “Over the last five years, London’s upscale restaurant offering has grown, largely as a result of the strength” of the financial district, said Iqbal Wahhab, the owner of Roast, a new restaurant, which uses only ingredients from Britain and features dishes like herring roe on toast.
"The London foreign exchange market is the largest in the world, with an average daily turnover of $504 billion, more than the New York and Tokyo combined.'
"London is the world’s largest international insurance market with gross premium income of £24.6 billion in 2002."
"London is the biggest market in the world for derivatives traded over-the-counter with 36 per cent of global turnover. The capital is the world’s largest fund management centre, managing almost half of Europe’s institutional equity capital worth $5,500 billion. More than half (56 per cent) of the global foreign equity market and seventy per cent of Eurobonds are traded in London."
Source: www dot london dot gov dot uk
"London handled 31% of global currency transactions in 2005 — an average daily turnover of US$753 billion — with more US dollars traded in London than New York, and more Euros traded than in every other city in Europe combined"
Wikipedia
So far, the only financial arena where New York is being clearly surpassed is in initial public offerings. This year, through the end of September, companies raised £17.9 billion, or $33.6 billion, in initial public offerings on London exchanges. In New York, initial public offerings raised $26.5 billion through September. By the end of 2006, more than $40 billion will have been raised in Hong Kong, thanks to two oversize bank offerings. London is predicted to come out on top in 2007.
let the battle begin! yeeehaaa!
But Wall Street banks still dominate London and benefit from business with the new wealth of Russia, Asia and the Middle East.
"This year, through late October, the London markets raised some $40 billion in initial public offerings (IPOs), compared with $30 billion in New York. According to the Journal, among the biggest international IPOs of each of the last two years, 11 WERE IN LONDON AND ONLY FOUR IN NEW YORK"
Tnr.com
lol
most liquid, transparent market in the world. Turner adds that the New York Stock Exchange, the Nasdaq and even the Amex have seen their composite indexes, trading volumes and market capitalizations powering ahead.
And despite all this, Turner says, investors are holding up well in U.S. stock markets versus London's exchanges. In the last six months, Turner notes, investors have gained on the U.S. indexes, the S&P, the Dow and Nasdaq, while investors on London’s AIM stock market have suffered a loss in market capitalization of about 20% (London’s FTSE 100 is up 22% year-to-date). And IPOs there have slowed considerably since March, to six in September from 21. Plus, AIM has seen a steady flow of delistings.
forbes. com
lol is right.
if you're basing this soley on ipo's, there's your first mistake. common of a novice to make. being a familial expert of institutional investing, the u.s markets can't be touched. for safe havens, foreign investments in the u.s markets are unrivaled. why? safety. when foreign capital wants a safe haven, they come to u.s markets because they know the regulatory environment keeps their money safe. ipo's are nothing. you can delist your stock and put it on any exchange you want. ipo's by definition are for a quick buck.
besides, the london exchange may be bought by the nyse or nasdaq. and if you want to talk commodities exchange, the london commodities exchange is dwarfed by the ny commodities exchange. pipe dreams london.
hmmm, and just where do most of the world's fortune 500 have their headquarters??
Whether they end up on AIM or the main London exchange, Lamb says his clients don't have New York on their radar screen. "They don't want do deal with regulatory requirements and the issue of personal liability for directors and officers that you now have in the U.S.," he says. "I hear this constantly." '
He adds that fees for lawyers and accounting firms in the United States that help companies comply with American rules can easily hit $1 to $2 million a year. "That's money that would otherwise go to the bottom line," he says.
The Big Board isn't standing still. A spokesperson points out that with the NYSE's imminent merger with Archipelago, the electronic trading platform, the NYSE will have a venue for companies that don't meet the NYSE's stringent requirements but do want a New York presence.
In addition, the NYSE has won some promising new foreign IPOs including Suntech, a Chinese solar power company, and Patni, an India-based IT services firm, both of which went public this month. "The NYSE remains the preeminent global listing venue for leading companies around the world," says NYSE spokesperson Christiaan Brakman.
And with a listed company market capitalization of over $21 trillion, he notes, the NYSE is five times bigger than the next largest exchange in the world, with one-third of that from foreign companies. Maybe so, but the heat is on in the search for new business -- and it will only grow hotter when the Big Board goes public next year.
cnn money
personally, i predict the london exchange will be taken over in the next 2 years.
I reiterate..
"The London foreign exchange market is the largest in the world, with an average daily turnover of $504 billion, more than the New York and Tokyo combined.'
"London is the world’s largest international insurance market with gross premium income of £24.6 billion in 2002."
"London is the biggest market in the world for derivatives traded over-the-counter with 36 per cent of global turnover. The capital is the world’s largest fund management centre, managing almost half of Europe’s institutional equity capital worth $5,500 billion. More than half (56 per cent) of the global foreign equity market and seventy per cent of Eurobonds are traded in London."
Source: www dot london dot gov dot uk
"London handled 31% of global currency transactions in 2005 — an average daily turnover of US$753 billion — with more US dollars traded in London than New York, and more Euros traded than in every other city in Europe combined"
Wikipedia
london stock exchange --
More than 15,000 securities are now traded on the London Stock Exchange’s primary and secondary markets. In 2004 we handled more than 66 million trades, an average of 261,000 trades every day.
The London Stock exchange lists 579 companies.
February 2005 saw an average 308,932 trades each day across the London Stock Exchange’s markets, exceeding the record daily average of 298,284 trades set only the previous month.
ny stock exchange --
As of December 31, 2005, the NYSE listed approximately 2,672 issuers, which includes operating companies, closed-end funds and exchange traded funds. The NYSE handles over 1.6 billion trades daily.
and i reiterate. you cannot get your financial facts from wikipedia, the financial times, the wall street journal or any commerical publication.
i mean compare the daily trades my friend. you can copy and paste all you want. this is the family business. i'm not too worried.
London is the biggest market in the world for derivatives traded over-the-counter with 36 per cent of global turnover. The capital is the world’s largest fund management centre, managing almost half of Europe’s institutional equity capital worth $5,500 billion. More than half (56 per cent) of the global foreign equity market and seventy per cent of Eurobonds are traded in London."
Source: www dot london dot gov dot uk
"London handled 31% of global currency transactions in 2005 — an average daily turnover of US$753 billion — with more US dollars traded in London than New York, and more Euros traded than in every other city in Europe combined"
Wikipedia
by Doctordraw on Sun Dec 03, 06 9:00pm
^ do you even know what that means? do you have any idea what otc means? think penny stocks
"The London foreign exchange market is the LARGEST IN THE WORLD, with an average daily turnover of $504 billion, MORE THAN THE NEW YORK AND TOKYO COMBINED"
"London handled 31% of global currency transactions in 2005 — an average daily turnover of US$753 billion — WITH MORE US DOLLARS TRADED IN LONDON THAN NEW YORK"
^I know what THEY mean ..
According to the most recent monthly report from the World Federation of Exchanges, the NYSE and Nasdaq combined had $16.9 trillion out of the world's $41 trillion in stock market capitalization in December 2005, or 41.2 percent of the world's total.
On that triumphant note....
i don't think you do know what it means. you're sole basis for this is on ipo's. do the research. the alarmists are all in a tither because guess what? people make a boat load of money on ipo's. so london had a greater share of ipo money in the last year. and? do you know what an ipo means? not just short term, but long-term? nothing. if a company wants to avoid corporate governance, go with the london exchange and do your ipo there. and? when it goes belly up because it's over-valuated and the stock crumbles, what exchange looks like the loser? london. face it -- when a company tries to avoid scruitiny, there is a reason. if you know anything about the stock market, commodities exchanges or the like, you'd know that the fast money is rarely the real money. sure in the short term listing an ipo on an exchange other than the nyse or nasdaq looks like a problem. but in the long-term, obviously the numbers speak for themselves.
are you talking about capital? venture capital? same thing. so some venture capitalists invest in an up-start that wants to avoid regulation. why? would you want to sink your money into an investment in which their sole rational is to avoid corporate governance and regulation? how's that a good thing?
anyway, i'm glad i realize that this is based on opinion and a very small segmentation of facts. the numbers you keep putting up are not new and certainly not a revelation of any kind. banking is still king, as is institutional investing. currency trading, otc stoks -- they've never been factors that grease the financial infastructure. they just make news for the reporters who can't cut in in the financial sector, so they report on it.
and bottom line is -- there are people making a shit load of money and you and i are not among them. at least i'm not --- yet. nice exchange of pastes. our stubborness is legendary on this site and we proved them all right. 
lol, I think you just broke me in to cut and paste debates kev; thanks, it was great!!
Makes me realise though that a degree in Economics doesnt actually teach me much about the operation of the financial markets themselves, the theory we learn is much more general (and useless?). What degree/qualification did you do/are you doing?
What congress intends (or claims to intend) by passing a specific bill has very little to do with the actual wording of the bill. Some bills are even given nice names to disarm the sheeple (looking at you crank). Does the title of the patriot act make it a good thing? How about the ministry of truth? You mean you don't support truth!?
Sarbanes-Oxley is drain on the American economy and no well meaning informed person could possibly support it. Don't take a politicians word for it. Read what the bill actually requires of business.
^The short of it.
SOx requires companies to make investments that have a negative NPV in a free market.
Sarbanes-Oxley was a necessary response to the economy destroying corporate corruption of the 90's. Don't be fooled by the BS of the ignorant and the corrupt, and of course, the "book smart - life dumb" crowd, (looking at you thick2883).
Ballot inspired by this article I read yesterday in the Sunday Times Magazine;
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,176-2469961,00.html
Ummm, what? Where did all the comments go? Did Kev's cut and paste frenzy overload the ballot or something?
|
