Giga-IPOs are a symptom of public markets’ giga-problem
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Finance & economics | Buttonwood<br>Giga-IPOs are a symptom of public markets’ giga-problem<br>The incredible shrinking stockmarket<br>Share
Illustration: Satoshi Kambayashi
May 26th 2026|4 min read
AMERICAN STOCK indices’ record highs mask a niggle: getting firms to list is getting harder. The number of initial public offerings (IPOs) fell from an annual average of over 400 in the 1990s to 115 in the past decade. This plus attrition and more firms going private has reduced the ranks of public companies in America from a peak of 8,000 in 1996 to 3,900 last year. Jamie Dimon, boss of JPMorgan Chase and Wall Street wise man, would like to see 15,000 or more. If companies steer clear of public markets, as so many now choose to, ordinary investors miss out on their dynamism.
This article appeared in the Finance & economics section of the print edition under the headline “The incredible shrinking stockmarket”
From the May 30th 2026 edition<br>Discover stories from this section and more in the list of contents<br>⇒Explore the edition
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