On the stock exchanges, the competition changes sides. A team of meteorologists has just joined the London Stock Exchange following the acquisition of Reuters' financial information and analysis sector by the London Stock Exchange.
The transaction, announced on August 1, 2019, kicked off a number of acquisitions totaling nearly $100 billion in the stock market. Stock exchanges are betting on investing in data. The London Stock Exchange is refocusing on the sale of financial data by completing the acquisition of Reuters' financial information and analysis business on Friday, January 29, 2021 for $27 billion (€22 billion).
The goals are changing to create and sell to investors and banks a myriad of services ranging from raw information to data analysis to risk management. "Stock markets are betting on investing in data. It's a strategy of rent, not really a strategy of democratization," said Ludovic Subran, chief economist at Allianz. For him, these new missions take the stock exchanges away from their initial role.
The LSE has pledged to let go of a whole section of its traditional activities in Europe in order to get the green light from Brussels. London suddenly becomes a gigantic information agency run by 24,000 computer developers.