On the desk today · London Stock Exchange Group
Three tolls. One company. Every index, every trade, every data feed passes through London.
| LSE · LSEG |
BofA's Digital Dollar Prediction (2025-2030)
Bank of America just revealed your expiration date.
In their Bloomberg interview, they didn't just predict the digital dollar. They gave us the timeline…
2025 to 2030.
We're in that window right now.
Their exact words: CBDCs are an "inevitable evolution of today's electronic currencies."
The Federal Reserve has already asked for public comment. The infrastructure is being built as you read this.
Once the digital dollar launches, every transaction you make will be tracked. Your spending could be controlled. Your accounts could be frozen.
China already did this. Nigeria already did this.
But there's still a legal backdoor.
I'm Tan Gera, ex-Wall Street banker and CFA Charterholder.
I left the system when I saw what was coming.
Over 4,500 investors have already used this legal backdoor to hold assets CBDCs can't freeze and generate yields the Federal Reserve can't touch.
Bank of America said 2025-2030. We're already in 2026.
The window is closing.
P.S. Bank of America called the digital dollar "inevitable." Discover the legal backdoor investors are using to escape →
The Coffee House That
Became a Toll Booth
In 1698, a man named John Castaing began publishing a list of stock and commodity prices at Jonathan's Coffee House in London's Exchange Alley. Traders gathered there to buy and sell shares over cups of coffee and gossip. There was no exchange. No building. No rules. Just a coffee house, a list, and a crowd of people who needed to know what things were worth.
Three hundred and twenty-eight years later, the institution that grew from that coffee house — the London Stock Exchange — is the centerpiece of a company that collects tolls on three of the most essential activities in global finance: indexing, trading, and data.
I checked a portfolio allocation last week. The benchmark was the Russell 2000 — the most widely used index for small-cap American stocks. Then I pulled up a client's pension fund, benchmarked against the FTSE All-World. I opened a data terminal to check bond prices — the screen said LSEG Workspace in the corner. Three different tasks. Three different products. Same company behind all of them.
Most people know the London Stock Exchange as a building — the place where British stocks are traded. That is true but incomplete. The London Stock Exchange Group is a holding company that owns four businesses under one roof, each collecting a different kind of fee from the global financial system. Data and Analytics — formerly Refinitiv — sells financial data terminals and price feeds to banks, asset managers, and corporations. FTSE Russell licenses indices — the FTSE 100, the Russell 2000, the Russell 1000 — to every ETF, fund, and pension benchmark that references them. Risk Intelligence sells compliance and financial crime detection tools. And Markets operates the exchange itself, plus LCH — one of the world's largest clearing houses — and a majority stake in Tradeweb, the electronic trading platform.
The modern LSEG was assembled through two defining acquisitions. In 2014, it acquired Frank Russell Company — the firm behind the Russell indices — for $2.7 billion and merged it with FTSE International to create FTSE Russell. In 2019, it agreed to buy Refinitiv — the financial data business that Thomson Reuters had spun off — for $27 billion in an all-share deal that closed in January 2021. Those two deals turned a venerable but mid-size stock exchange into a global financial infrastructure company.
In fiscal 2025, LSEG reported total income of £9.0 billion — up 7.1% on an organic constant-currency basis. Adjusted EBITDA reached £4.5 billion at a 50.3% margin — up 210 basis points from the year before. Adjusted earnings per share grew 15.7% to 420.6 pence. The company returned £2.8 billion to shareholders. Every segment grew: Data and Analytics rose 5.0%, FTSE Russell 7.3%, Risk Intelligence 11.7%, and Markets 8.9%.
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Forget SpaceX. Elon's next BIG bet is a radical "light-speed" device that's turning AI into "Accelerated AI" – and making it 100 times faster and 100 times more energy efficient.
The mainstream hasn't caught on yet. But "Accelerated AI" stocks are breaking out as we speak: 133%, 217%, or even 320% or more… and it's just getting started.
That 50.3% EBITDA margin tells you what kind of business this has become. LSEG is no longer a stock exchange that earns commissions on trades. It is a data and index licensing company that happens to own a stock exchange. Data and Analytics plus FTSE Russell together account for 74% of total income. These are subscription and licensing businesses with recurring revenue, high retention, and almost zero marginal cost per additional customer. When a new ETF launches and benchmarks itself against the FTSE All-World or the Russell 2000, LSEG collects a licensing fee — for the life of the fund — without deploying a single additional pound of capital.
The stickiness is structural. An asset manager benchmarking a $10 billion fund against the Russell 2000 cannot switch indices without rebalancing every position, changing every client report, and explaining to every stakeholder why the benchmark changed. The index is embedded in the mandate. The mandate is embedded in the contract. The contract renews. And LSEG collects. In fiscal 2025, FTSE Russell revenue grew 7.3% — driven by rising assets under management in index-linked products and new index launches. The toll grows as the market grows.
David Schwimmer, LSEG's CEO, said it plainly in the preliminary results announcement: the company delivered "strong growth, significant product innovation, improving margins and cash flow" — with £2.8 billion returned to shareholders. He guided organic revenue growth of 6.5% to 7.5% for 2026 and mid- to high single-digit growth in the 2027-2029 medium-term period.
The flywheel runs on three layers. First, Data and Analytics — the former Refinitiv business — sells data terminals and price feeds to financial professionals on annual subscriptions. ASV growth was 5.9% at December 2025. Second, FTSE Russell licenses indices whose fees grow automatically with the assets benchmarked against them — no sales effort required. Third, Markets earns on every trade executed and every contract cleared through LCH and Tradeweb. When markets are calm, the data subscriptions keep paying. When markets are volatile, trading volumes spike and clearing fees surge. The three layers don't just diversify revenue — they hedge each other. Calm markets feed the subscription. Volatile markets feed the exchange. LSEG collects either way.
WHY THIS WORKS
The index is a royalty. Every ETF, every fund, and every pension benchmark that references a FTSE or Russell index pays a licensing fee. The fee scales with assets under management. As markets rise, the toll rises.
Data subscriptions renew automatically. Financial professionals pay annually for LSEG Workspace, price feeds, and analytics. The retention rate mirrors the industry standard — the workflow is too embedded to switch.
50% EBITDA margins on a subscription base. Licensing and data are nearly zero-marginal-cost businesses. Every new subscriber, every new ETF launch, and every new data feed drops almost entirely to profit.
Three revenue layers hedge each other. Data grows in calm markets. Trading and clearing grow in volatile ones. Index licensing grows with asset appreciation. No single market condition can suppress all three simultaneously.
In 1698, stock prices were published at a coffee house in Exchange Alley. In 2025, the company that grew from that coffee house collected £9 billion in total income — from data terminals in New York, index licenses in Tokyo, and clearing fees in Frankfurt. The building has changed. The crowd has changed. The coffee is gone. But the function is the same: a central place where the world's capital is priced, indexed, traded, and recorded. LSEG doesn't own the capital. It owns the infrastructure the capital passes through. And every time it passes — every trade, every benchmark, every data pull — the toll arrives.
