00:00Before we get to these trading debuts and maybe some IPOs coming through, I just want to talk to you about the amount of volume that's come through your business through the year so far.
00:08Just walk us through it. Yeah. If I look back on this year, it's been a year unlike any other, both from the demands on our system and the liquidity in our system manifesting itself in trading volumes.
00:22Now, if you look at that period between Liberation Day and the pause, we saw records in terms of messaging traffic hitting around 1.2 trillion incoming order messages that we processed with 30 microseconds median response time on two of those days.
00:41And then if you look at the amount of transactions that occurred on our platform and the equity markets as a whole, I mean, an average day is around 16 billion trades.
00:54And now during that period, we have 30 billion. It's just unprecedented.
00:59It's more than two times the amount of volume, both from execution, from actual trades, as well as from messaging than we saw during COVID.
01:09Now, you remember how active COVID was. And there's been a variety of reasons why we've seen that, I think.
01:17Do you think it's something we take for granted, the infrastructure holding up in the way it has done?
01:22I think it's something that we at the NYSE spent a tremendous amount of time thinking about and planning for.
01:31We hope you take it for granted because that means we're doing our job.
01:34Our job is to ensure that the markets are open and efficient so you can manage risk, particularly during those incredibly uncertain times like we saw in April.
01:46We saw an incredible amount of volume on the secondary markets of existing companies that have existing shares.
01:52This was supposed to be the year of IPOs, of deals, of all sorts of capital markets activity.
01:59Where are we in that? Are we seeing a revival of that as people get a little bit more confidence around trade or is it still really kind of being iced?
02:08Yeah. So initially this year when I was with you both in Davos, I was incredibly excited.
02:13You know, I still am really excited about the IPO markets.
02:17I think Mountain and Hinge last week going and doing so incredibly well, both pricing at the high end of the range, both up significantly over their IPO prices just in their first two days of trading,
02:33are the sign of what I was talking about with you both in Davos and that there's a tremendous amount of demand for new issuance in the market.
02:43Portfolio managers I talked to, long-only funds I talked to, they want new issues in the market.
02:50So I think you're starting to see these companies now come to market now that the VIX has come back to earth, come back to that 20-ish level,
03:00and you're not seeing as much of the intraday swings as a result.
03:05You talked about Davos. I'm just wondering, the enthusiasm you had then, can you give a sense of how much lower the volume of IPOs or deals you expect to be for the remainder of this year now
03:17than, say, in January, based on the uncertainty and based on what hasn't gotten done over the first half of the year?
03:24I'm actually still optimistic that the same amount of IPOs will go. It's just shifted out.
03:30If I look in the case of Mountain and Hinge, they were targeting early April.
03:34You've seen StubHub flip. You've seen Klarna flip. Circle went on the road this morning, which is an IPO we're incredibly excited about happening just next week.
03:44So I think you're starting to see that group of companies that was public market ready get out of the gates.
03:53So I'm optimistic. I'm optimistic that the second half of this year is going to be when you start to see these bigger names come to market.
04:03Do we need clarity on the policies in Washington first? And how disruptive has that been for your business?
04:08I remember the president on the stock exchange floor alongside you.
04:11Yeah. This is not what we all expected. This has been chaotic for a lot of people.
04:15Do we need some clarity on those issues to see the Canada play out in the way that you expect?
04:19So I think there's just been some uncertainty in the market. You can't you can't argue that if you're a good company, though,
04:26if you're a company that has made the the plans to go public, which many have their public company ready.
04:34I think they can go in any market, particularly when you look at certain sectors. Crypto is certainly a sector where there's a lot of optimism.
04:45Still some companies are still trying to weigh the benefits or the issues associated with tariffs.
04:53And that's going to be a movable feast throughout the course of the year.
04:57Everyone around this table is incredibly pro-America. You and I were on a panel together.
05:01You mentioned Davos and we were talking about American exceptionalism.
05:06And then all of a sudden people are talking about peak American exceptionalism and the rest of the world.
05:10Can we have a final word from you on that? The future of America and American exceptionalism.
05:14There's nothing that beats our capital markets. There's no substitute for our capital markets.
05:19They're the deepest, most liquid in the world. They continue to be the envy of a world.
05:25The geopolitical situation, though, is a conversation. I think that's where I'll leave it.
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