NYSE Sees Strong Growth in 2022

In a story in MarketsMedia news, Kevin Tyrrell, Head of NYSE Research, says that the year 2021 set a second-straight record for new listings on the NYSE, adding more than $1 trillion in new market capitalization. The year’s IPOs, direct listings and SPAC business combinations were able to leverage the NYSE DMM model to maximize liquidity and price stability for the opening auction and first minutes of trading. Retail trading also remained a major theme, punctuated by the growing interest in “meme stocks” that began in January. Importantly, retail trading growth impacted the listed options market even more than the underlying cash equities market. Options market volume is roughly double the level of two years ago, and this has important spillover effects for the cash market. This robust capital markets activity and retail participation led to high market volumes, but given elevated levels of fragmentation, high volumes did not necessarily lead to ample liquidity for institutional orders. The SEC has already issued several rulemaking proposals covering a number of market structure issues, and we expect more to come in 2022. At the same time, higher levels of retail activity do not seem to be going away, and we expect market participants to continue working to expand and optimize their opportunities to interact with this order flow.