The IPO market has also suffered recently (see Wall Street Journal article, Financial Times article). Only 25 companies priced their stock IPOs somewhere in the world in August, the lowest number of deals since Dealogic began tracking them in 1995.

Maybe even more troublesome than the reduced number of IPOs is the increased numbers of delistings that are also putting pressure on the exchanges. Year-to-date more companies have been delisted from the Nasdaq Stock Market than a year ago (see Financial Week article). To a lesser extent, NYSE listing are also up as companies fail to meet minimum listing requirements. So far, more Nasdaq-listed companies have been delisted for non-compliance this year than in the previous two years. As of August 7, 54 stocks were delisted. As comparison, only 48 total companies were delisted last year, with 52 delistings in 2006. For the NYSE, 11 companies were delisted as of July 1 of this year. This compares to 21 last year and 14 in 2006.

Along with a lower number of IPOs, the lower number of listings are affecting the profitability of the exchanges which derive up to 15% of their overall revenue from listing fees. While there have been more delistings on the Nasdaq, in part since smaller companies are more vulnerable during difficult times, companies pay much less to be on the Nasdaq (around $27,500 a year), so the loss of listing fees is not as severe. On the other hand, the NYSE will lose around $878,000 in annual revenue from IndyBank and Bear Stearns alone. When looking at the stock performance, the NYSE Euronext (NYX) stock has suffered over the last year and is right around its 52 week low near $40 per share. The CME Group (CME) has bounced slightly from 52 week lows near $300 a share to move near $340 a share, but is still struggling. On the other hand, the Nasdaq OMX Group (NDAQ) has recover to $32 a share after bottoming out around $24 a share in early July. The exchanges certainly have more issues to worry about than just delistings, and their stocks reflect this, but the continued fallout of the credit crisis is certainly continuing to find its way into more areas than the obvious players.