President of NYSE Group and Chair of ICE Fixed Income & Data Services, Intercontinental Exchange Inc
Martin: The U.S. economy drives the global economy forward
At the World Economic Forum in Davos, Andrew Ross Sorkin interviews Lynn Martin, CEO of the New York Stock Exchange, discussing global economic optimism, IPOs, tariffs, and the role of crypto markets. For access to live and exclusive video from CNBC subscribe to CNBC PRO: https://cnb.cx/42d859g
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About Lynn Martin
Lynn Martin, President of the NYSE Group, discussed the role of public markets in funding AI and other technological revolutions, stating that "the public markets are the only markets to generate the type of capital for the medium to long term on a consistent basis that is required for every revolution." She added that a healthy public market requires a healthy private market, as private incubation stages feed into public offerings. Martin also commented on the Trump administration's investment accounts for young people, saying they are "great from two perspectives," promoting financial literacy and creating a generation with "a stake in America." Martin questioned rule changes made by the Nasdaq to attract a listing from SpaceX, saying that "market integrity is not something that is a competitive dynamic" and that some of the rules are "questionable." She emphasized that protecting investors, particularly retail investors, is the NYSE's priority. Martin noted that the NYSE has seen a strong year for IPOs across multiple sectors, including industrials, energy, and consumer names, and that the exchange has "no intention of leaving New York City."
Transcript (21 segments)
I
Interviewer0:11
Couple days and we keep talking about a vibe shift.
L
Lynn Martin0:13
Yeah.
I
Interviewer0:14
What is the vibe? What is the biggest takeaway you've gotten so far out of this?
L
Lynn Martin0:18
A tremendous amount of optimism.
I
Interviewer0:21
Optimism from U.S. folks or across the board?
L
Lynn Martin0:23
I would say across the board.
I
Interviewer0:24
Really?
L
Lynn Martin0:25
Which has sort of surprised me. I think it's a function of the importance of the U.S. economy in driving the global economy forward.
I
Interviewer0:37
The reason I'm surprised is I found that the Americans seem to be quite optimistic, a little skittish, but that everybody else is a little bit more skittish and anxious given the prospect of tariffs and the like.
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Lynn Martin0:53
I think on the tariffs issue, though, I think it's going to be the strength of the U.S. economy. I think the people that he has around him, a lot of very smart people going into the cabinet, are going to look at the issue of tariffs alongside the issue of inflation. So we will see how this unfolds over the course of the year.
I
Interviewer1:27
What does the IPO pipeline look like for you? The reason I ask is we had Bill Ford here yesterday for General Atlantic and we were talking about how there are so many companies that have been waiting to go public for such a long time, almost no exits in the sort of private equity space, which has created its own bottleneck as it relates to fundraising and the like because nobody is able to give back money to the U.S. pension funds and things like that. What do you really see happening here?
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Lynn Martin1:55
I think I see a mix of IPOs. Last week, did really well, Flowco in the energy sector. We have a large deal at the moment, Venture Global. We have a tremendous pipeline and people are actually doing the work to go public now, not just talking about doing the work.
I
Interviewer2:27
How concerned are you just about the PE ratio of this market? Because we are — I don't want to say priced for perfection, but there is an argument to be made, you look at the beginning of presidential terms, we are at historic highs, meaning a new president comes in, and the PE ratio is the highest it's ever been. And I just wonder what that means for the next four years.
L
Lynn Martin2:51
I think that it underscores the demand that I hear from long-only funds that they want more. PE ratios as some of the higher PE ratios, a lot of good value in those companies. So I think you will see a rebalancing.
I
Interviewer3:19
How do you think about your role in the world of crypto? For four years you could argue — I don't want to say crypto was stalled because clearly Bitcoin moved even before Trump was in office, but clearly you now have a president who is fully behind crypto and I wonder for the New York Stock Exchange, we were talking to Brian Armstrong, Coinbase yesterday, just what that ultimately means in terms of do you say to yourself we need to be big time in this business? Do you start to think, okay, the whole idea of initial coin offerings which were taken off the table because people thought they were scams, does that come back?
L
Lynn Martin4:11
So much of the optimism in the crypto markets is that finally we will have clarity as to what that framework looks like.
I
Interviewer4:19
And then assuming that you get some kind of clarity, where does the New York Stock Exchange play in that?
L
Lynn Martin4:25
We've always been an advocate of fair, transparent markets. Regulation has always been a tailwind for us. It's why we spend so much time on pioneering the crypto ETF. We started working on the first crypto ETF with Grayscale in 2016, we only got to market last year, which is crazy to me. So we're just going to continue to look for opportunities to add transparency to markets.
I
Interviewer4:55
Finally, what do you make of these meme coins? There's lots of questions to be asked — obviously the family is making lots of money doing it, there's legal and ethical questions, all sorts of things, but I'm curious what you think of the phenomenon of these kinds of coins?
L
Lynn Martin5:22
You know, I think the jury is out on them. I'm not going to comment one way or the other other than to say they...
I
Interviewer5:30
They?