In today’s Times Business, Irwin Stelzer muses about Wall Street’s apparent loss of confidence in its future :

“New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg, all a twitter about Wall Street’s loss of market share to the City of London, hops over to meet financial regulators in the City. SEC chairman Chris Cox tells me he is studying FSA chairman Callum McCarthy’s use of light-handed, principles-based rather than rules-based regulation to control City types who might be overly zealous in their pursuit of bonuses.

“… Bloomberg, Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson and others blame Wall Street’s declining market share on the burdens placed on corporate boards by the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. Never mind that investment bankers’ fees are higher in America …”

However, not a lot may come of this, Stelzer thinks :

“Despite pressures coming from Messrs Bloomberg and Paulson, Hillary Clinton and others, congress and the SEC are unlikely to do more than make a slight move in the direction of UK-style, principles-based financial regulation.”

No wonder London is feeling fairly confident about its future as a world financial centre when, all around, others are losing their heads.

After its recent triumph in seeing off a distinctly hostile bid from American exchange Nasdaq, the LSE must be ruminating on its long run of successes in similar defensive situations over the past decade. Can it continue indefinitely?

Chairman, Christopher Gibson-Smith appears relaxed about the whole thing : “I joined [the LSE] because of the almost certainty that this sort of thing would happen.”

No regrets, then? “The succession of attacks against the exchange has disrupted our core business from delivering strategically.” In the end, though, “Everything can be dealt with. Everything is amenable to solution. I don’t engage with the world in terms of perceived obstacles that I can’t deal with. … I don’t regard Nasdaq [with 28.75 percent of LSE shares] as an obstacle to a major deal [with another exchange]. I don’t think we have any idea what Nasdaq wants to do.”

On the presence of other predators in the share register, including the no-nonsense hedge funds, Gibson-Smith says : “We ended up with a third generation of … let’s call them hedge funds, but I think of them more as active pursuers of value.”

Pollyana or realist, the LSE Chairman certainly gives the impression of being on top of a confused situation. As well he might in view of the recent run of victorious outcomes. But what of the new wave of consolidations, especially the new giant emerging on its doorstep comprising the New York Stock Exchange, Euronext and the one that got away : Liffe? And Project Turquoise is still to loom on the horizon.

More later.

So the nationalist argument won after all, bolstered by the impeccable business case put by Clara Furse and the London Stock Exchange board.

This is a departure from recent events where much of the UK’s prime and strategic assets have been sold off to less than glittering buyers from all over the world.

Clara Furse can be proud of her unyielding defence of the centrepiece of Britain’s powerful financial centre in the City of London.

Inevitably, the discussion moves on to : what next? As if just doing the job is not enough for our news hungry generation.

Talk is that the LSE may link up with the New York Stock Exchange and participate in its forcoming wedding with Euronext. What was that the late Princess Diana said about three in a marriage?

Given her record of doughty defence of the LSE’s independence, why would she suddenly cave in to John Thain’s overtures? Better an all-out assault against a weakened Nasdaq to turn the tables. But I doubt relations would be good following a successful outcome and Furse has been as reluctant to go on the offensive as she has been stout in defence.

There are many options open to the London exchange now. Which it chooses to follow will be of absorbing interest during the rest of this year.

This has been a record year for world stock markets with IPOs raising £116 billion ($227bn), according to Ernst & Young.

The Hong Kong Stock Exchange did best, grabbing 17pc of the total. But the London Stock Exchange came a close second, with 15pc, ahead of the New York exchange on 11pc, Euronext on 8pc, and Nasdaq, at a lowly 6pc.

Much of the bonanza has come from Russian and Chinese companies seeking havens in lightly-regulated financial centres. The LSE has scored heavily over the American outfits because of the negative effect of the Sarbanes-Oxley legislation.