NASDAQ CEO Adena Friedman: U.S. public markets "should remain open, politics have come into the mix in recent months, cautious about making sure companies are vetted and audit firms live by same standards...make sure we don’t choke off access to capital."

Video Transcript

ADENA FRIEDMAN: It is very much a global competitive landscape for capital formation. So the exchanges in China and Hong Kong are highly competitive, in terms of trying to attract companies that are domiciled in China to come in list there. And then-- but then, we still have a lot of companies from China also looking to tap the US public markets.

And so it is a great opportunity for Chinese companies to realize they have a lot of choice. But we also have to make sure that the US public markets remain open and available to companies coming from China and the broader Asian region. And that's where some politics have come into the mix in recent months. That we are cautious about making sure that, when companies come to the US, that they are vetted the way that they should be, of course, and that the audit firms have-- or live by the same standards as anyone in any other jurisdiction.

But at the same time, you want to make sure that we don't choke off access to capital by making it so that the barriers to entry are too high. So it's been an interesting time for us to manage through a global capital competitive landscape and, at the same time, making sure that the companies come here live up to the standards that we expect.