How to revive Britain’s stockmarket

ASK BRITONSFTSELSELSEFTSES&P what actually goes on in the City of London and you’ll be met with a blank stare. Trading the yen and the yuan, structuring derivatives and providing the world’s financial plumbing are all money-spinners, but they barely register in the public imagination. The exception is the stockmarket. Daily news bulletins report trading on the 100 index of leading London shares. Booms and busts are charted by its gyrations. The London Stock Exchange () is the stamping-ground of giant multinationals, where city-slickers and corporate fat-cats thrash out huge deals to buy and sell the world’s companies.Or at least it used to be. London’s high-flying stockmarket has spent the past decade tumbling back to earth. In 2006 the companies with shares listed in London were worth 10.4% of the global equity market. Today, that figure is 3.6%. London has lagged behind even the laggards: its share of Europe’s total market value has declined from 36% to 22% over the same period. The denizens of the that are left look geriatric. Less than one-fiftieth of the 100’s value comes from tech companies, compared with almost 40% of the 500 index of American firms. James Anderson of Baillie Gifford, one of the most successful global investors of the era, recently told the that Britain has a 19th-century stockmarket. He is right.