The entrance of the London Stock Exchange Group building (Manuel Romano/Getty Images)

Weird Money

No one wants to list their stock in London

Companies are leaving the London Stock Exchange at the fastest rate since 2009, with New York looking increasingly attractive for listings.

Jack Raines

12/17/24 12:32PM

London and New York have long been seen as the financial capitals of the world, but in recent years, the American finance hub has grown larger and larger while England’s capital city has fallen behind. Nowhere is this trend more evident than in companies’ primary stock-market listing decisions. Over the weekend, the Financial Times published a piece on the exodus of companies from the London Stock Exchange for a New York listing:

“The London Stock Exchange is on course for its worst year for departures since the financial crisis, as fears mount that more FTSE 100 businesses will quit the UK in favour of New York. A total of 88 companies have delisted or transferred their primary listing from London’s main market this year with only 18 taking their place, according to the London Stock Exchange Group.
This marks the biggest net outflow of companies from the main market since 2009, while the number of new listings is also on course to be the lowest in 15 years as initial public offerings remain scarce and bidders target London-listed groups.”

In total, companies worth ~14% of the total value of the FTSE have ditched the London exchange for overseas listing since 2020. There are some structural reasons for the move. One example is London’s Stamp Duty Reserve Tax, which requires investors to pay a 0.5% tax on transactions when buying UK shares in a company. Per the FT, companies also cited deeper investor pools and better liquidity in New York than London.

However, this is a macro story as much as it is an exchange-specific one. London is the largest financial center in Europe and New York is the largest financial center in the US, both representing their respective capital markets. The US economy and capital market are much stronger compared to Europe than they have been historically, and money is going to flow where it’s treated best.

In 2008, the eurozone and the US had virtually identical GDPs: $14.2 trillion and $14.8 trillion. In 2023, those values were just over $15 trillion for the eurozone vs. $26.9 trillion for the US. The eurozone, adjusted for inflation, has had almost no growth, while the US economy has almost doubled. On a GDP-per-capita basis, Italy is neck and neck with Mississippi, the US’s poorest state, and Germany lies somewhere between Oklahoma and Maine (38th and 39th).

Between 2010 and 2023, the cumulative GDP growth rate in the US was 34%, while it was just 18% in the eurozone, and labor productivity over that period grew by 22% in the US and just 5% in the eurozone. As you could probably guess, US stocks have also outperformed: since 2000, the S&P 500 has returned 7.64% per year, while the FTSE 100 returned 4.15% (in USD, or 4.83% in British pounds).

Basically, the US has just been a better market to invest in since the financial crisis, so it shouldn’t be a huge surprise that companies are opting for New York listings instead of London listings. New York is where the money is.

The risk, for London, is that this trend can form a dangerous flywheel: as more companies opt to list in New York instead of London, investors have even fewer reasons to invest in London over New York, leading more companies to list in New York instead, and the cycle could accelerate. I’m not envious of London Stock Exchange Group execs right now.

Max Knoblauch3h

Airlines rise, continuing their volatile 2026, as US-Iran talks may foreshadow some oil supply relief

Airline stocks are surging on Friday, as the market appears to be pricing in some medium-term oil pricing relief following talks between the US and Iran. Iranian officials referred to the meeting as “a good beginning.”

Shares of budget carriers, which have tighter margins and are more sensitive to fluctuations in fuel costs, are leading the surge. Frontier Airlines and Allegiant up more than 13%, while major airlines like United Airlines, American Airlines, and Delta Air Lines are also up at least 6%. JetBlue and Alaska Air are similarly up about 6%.

The market more broadly is rebounding on Friday, with the S&P 500 up 1.6% and bitcoin recovering some of this week’s losses.

Airlines have been volatile to start 2026 amid geopolitical tensions, varying annual forecasts, and the impact of winter storms.

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The AI supply chain is soaring thanks to Amazon’s capex budget

If tech companies are going to spend way more than expected on capex, well, that means other companies are poised to benefit from that massive spending spree.

Amazon’s plan for $200 billion in business investment this year was the exclamation point to end a reporting period that saw every Magnificent 7 hyperscaler that provides guidance offer a 2026 capex budget well above what Wall Street had anticipated.

Here’s a look at the different parts of the supply chain that are soaring on the persistent demand for, and seeming scarcity of, AI compute:

Data center/neocloud companies: Applied Digital, CoreWeave, Cipher Mining, and Nebius, with some of these seemingly getting an extra lift from their legacy role as crypto miners.
Chips: the usual suspects — Nvidia, Broadcom, and Advanced Micro Devices.
Racks: Super Micro Computer, which is continuing its strong run following earnings, and Dell.
Power: Oklo, Nuscale, and Plug Power.

Big Tech capital expenditure soared in 2025. It’s going up another 50% in 2026.

Here’s a look at the different parts of the supply chain that are soaring on the persistent demand for, and seeming scarcity of, AI compute:

Data center/neocloud companies: Applied Digital, CoreWeave, Cipher Mining, and Nebius, with some of these seemingly getting an extra lift from their legacy role as crypto miners.
Chips: the usual suspects — Nvidia, Broadcom, and Advanced Micro Devices.
Racks: Super Micro Computer, which is continuing its strong run following earnings, and Dell.
Power: Oklo, Nuscale, and Plug Power.

Matt Phillips5h

For memory chips, the “parabolic price hike” is continuing to ramp higher

The remarkable run-up in prices for memory chips continued into early February, analysts at Bernstein Research say, driven largely by data center demand from hyperscalers and cloud service providers (CSP).

Prices for NAND flash memory wafers — a type of memory used in devices, as it retains data even when powered down — soared 35% between the end of 2025 and February 2.

Spot prices for DRAM — ubiquitous short-term data storage chips — jumped about 28% in that period. But that massively understates the remarkable shift in pricing for what were long seen as commodity tech hardware inputs. DRAM prices are more than 2,000% over the last year, while NAND prices are up more than 600% in that period.

The ongoing momentum provides still more support for memory chip plays like Micron and Sandisk, which have been big market winners in recent months.

In a note published earlier this week, Bernstein Research analysts wrote:

“The parabolic price hike continued in Jan. Indicated price increase for 1QCY26 is much stronger than we expected and we hence see upside to our near term memory pricing projection. Unrelenting CSP demand remained the main driver. PC and Mobile demand hasn’t been destroyed yet because of lean inventory & pull-forward purchase. Going forward price hike is expected to continue but likely at a slower rate, as PC and Mobile demand should contract meaningfully this year. Price however may stay elevated throughout this year, supported by CSP demand.”

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Bloom Energy earnings get warm reception from analysts

Fuel cell-based power provider Bloom Energy posted better-than-expected Q4 earnings and sales results after the bell on Thursday, sending the stock higher aftermarket and into early Friday trading. Here’s some of the positive chatter from analysts reacting to the bullish results:

Barclays: “What to know: 1) 2026 guide well above the Street for all metrics; 2) Product backlog comes in at $6.0bn with services backlog of $14.0 bn, reflecting 100% attach rate on new bookings.”

Morgan Stanley: “An inflection in growth is now beginning to show up in the financials. Significant 4Q25 earnings beat, product backlog up 2.5x, and 2026 revenue guidance meeting our Street-high forecast: >50% YoY as demand begins to ramp. We stay OW, raise PT to $184 on recent project wins.”

JP Morgan: “We are adjusting our estimates and introducing FY28 estimates with this note. Our YE26 price target goes to $166, from $154. While the stock has significantly outperformed YTD, we maintain our Overweight rating and believe that additional contract announcements should provide further positive catalysts and potentially increased visibility into our unit shipment vs margin sensitivity analysis (see below).”

Evercore ISI: “The most noticeable and arguably most anticipated metric Bloom provided was its current product backlog which currently stands at $6B representing a ~2.5x increase YoY, with total current backlog (product and services) ballooning to $20B. These impressive backlog metrics should provide confidence in the company’s ability to deliver on its newly established $3.1-$3.1B 2026 revenue target (vs. cons. of ~$2.1B) and double its non-GAAP operating income ($450M midpoint vs. $221M 2025A).”