There has been a lot of angst as of late about whether the U.S. was losing its financial dominance. A huge issue is whether the IPO market has been harmed by Sarbanes-Oxley. Turns out that the pace of deals this year is off to a good start. In the usually quiet first quarter, deals hit a seven-year high: 64 deals for $12 billion, led by financial services firms. The Nasdaq beat the New York Stock Exchange in volume for the first time in three years by one measure. The Nasdaq raised $6 billion from 39 deals. The NYSE raised $4.7 billion from 11 deals. Meanwhile, in Europe, IPOs raised $13.3 billion, down a bit from the previous year. For all the strength of U.S. IPOs, the private placement market has been even stronger. Last year, for the first time, more money was raised via private placements than IPOs.  

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