Opinion | Our Booming Stock Market Is in Peril - The New York Times

There is a puzzling contradiction at the heart of America’s economy. Investors are sinking more and more money into the stock market. Indexes are reaching record highs. But a growing number of American companies are refusing to participate in public markets at all. Over the past 30 years, the number of companies that sell shares on markets such as the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq has fallen by roughly 50 percent. Fast-growing big-name companies like Anthropic, SpaceX, Databricks and Anduril — companies that in all likelihood would have gone public in the previous decade — are choosing to remain private instead. The impact can be felt in every corner of our economy. The decline of our public markets goes hand in hand with the meteoric rise of private equity, which too often weakens companies and leaves them less committed to their employees, customers, suppliers, lenders and communities. Most everyday investors can no longer buy into some of the country’s fastest-growing businesse

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