The stock market is shrinking and Jamie Dimon is worried

The number of publicly traded companies in the US is shrinking. Jamie Dimon, one of the world’s most influential business leaders, is worried.

A version of this story first appeared in CNN Business’ Before the Bell newsletter. Not a subscriber? You can sign up right here. You can listen to an audio version of the newsletter by clicking the same link. The number of publicly traded companies in the United States is shrinking. Jamie Dimon, one of the world’s most influential business leaders, is worried. At their peak in 1996, there were 7,300 publicly traded companies in the US. Today there are about 4,300. It’s not that America has 40% fewer companies than it did 30 years ago, it’s that companies are increasingly staying private, largely outside the scrutiny of the public eye. “The total should have grown dramatically, not shrunk,” wrote Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase, in his annual shareholder letter on Monday. The PE boom: The shrinking public market has private equity to blame — funds that pool money from investors to acquire or invest in companies.