The volume of shares outstanding globally is shrinking at the fastest pace in 25 years as the number of offerings falls due to economic and geopolitical uncertainty while companies continue to buy back significant amounts of their securities, writes the Financial Times.
Net volume of publicly traded shares has already fallen by $120 billion this year, compared with $40 billion for the full year 2023, according to JPMorgan. The decline marks the third consecutive year of decline, which hasn’t happened since the settlement began in 1999.
According to the bank, the scale of buyback programs this year is comparable to their volumes in the previous three years. By December, according to forecasts, the total amount of buybacks could reach $1.2 trillion.
At the same time, expectations for IPOs and other equity offerings have not yet been met, the article notes.
The two trends reflect “ongoing uncertainty” among companies around the world, said Nikolaos Panigirtzoglou of JPMorgan.
Stock offerings were previously expected to increase this year as investors became more confident that the U.S. (the world’s largest stock market) could avoid an economic recession. But lingering fears that inflation could accelerate again due to strong economic growth mean that “it hasn’t really happened,” Panigirtzoglu said. “It shows that some people don’t think the worst is behind them,” he added.
Last November, analysts at JPMorgan predicted the stock market would grow by $360 billion in 2024 thanks to IPOs of new companies and buyback reductions.
Since 2000, the number of listed companies in the US has fallen from more than 7,000 to less than 4,000, according to index provider Wilshire. A similar trend has been seen in Europe and the UK.
