It’s not quite “to Infinity and beyond!” — as Buzz Lightyear succinctly put it . However, we’re orbiting as we touch issue 2001 and looking towards a stellar future.

Exchange Invest is just shy of 8 years old. In that time it has become the newsletter leading thinkers in the business of bourses read daily to keep up with what’s happening. Sub-titled “The Exchange Of Information” — Exchange Invest is the journal of what we quaintly term “the parish” of exchanges. It’s not quite big enough to merit a sector in its own right (analysts often lump it into catch-all — or at least catch enough bulk to justify a job — terms like “specialty finance”). I discussed the background to publishing a successful micro niche newsletter May 2017, precisely 1000 issues ago.

Since then, Exchange Invest has enjoyed 4 fabulous years of growth not merely in pixels produced but across a raft of KPIs. There has been one significant change — we pivoted to a subscriber only core model (Monday-Friday). That has been enhanced with a Saturday omnibus edition devoted to more macroeconomic topics alongside a free weekly podcast of key headlines from the previous 7 days.

We also pushed into video content and now on Tuesdays at 6pm London time, we have the: IPO-VID LiveStream where “In Patrick’s Opinion” guests discuss issues about business, finance, entrepreneurship and of course exchanges.

The LiveStream has become our weekly Parish meeting — part interview, part brainstorming, addressing multiple issues with our active community participating throughout. The discussion then spills over into the newsletter and a swathe of emails between readers. Every week is a micro conference for the niche community of Exchange Invest readers — parishioners in a unique ecosystem with connections across the world from top to bottom in the bourse operations stack. The joy of a micro niche newsletter is being able to maintain connections with the readers as they too find ways to communicate, improving the business of bourses.

As always, we’re not shying away from calling the big issues of the day according to what we believe — and the track record remains hearteningly accurate too. Pith, insight and prediction makes for a good value newsletter. In other news, Brexit seems to have worked out remarkably like what we predicted… That’s not something most actual media organisations can claim.

Therein doubtless lies our ongoing advantage, we publish newsletters laden with insightful pith but do so as practitioners in the industry, not journalists following the messages the trade sector seeks to feed them. As parishioners, we want the best for the exchange business. During the pandemic we have been delighted by the success of the bourse business in most areas albeit with a few unfortunate exceptions.

Clearly for a small business the threat of Covid loomed large. We took immediate action. Budgets were cut and plans pruned. Not a cent of government funding was sought by the way. I am not averse to bailouts where they are truly required. However, as an old fashioned entrepreneur, I put my money on the line and I curtailed my lifestyle to keep things running.

Ultimately we maintained our production and despite lockdowns, business didn’t disappear as it sadly has in many other sectors. Rather, with commuters shorn of their rail trips, their subway rides and the discourse that came from the platforms to the coffee shops on the way to the water cooler… information was at a premium. Concerns that reader engagement might dwindle as jobs were lost instead turned into a remarkable upswing in engagement. The folks now working from kitchen tables with only the cat by the coffee machine found, Exchange Invest became more essential than ever to keep them in touch with news from the parish delivered via the interweb’s bush telegraph.

So here we are, into our third millennium of issues with Exchange Invest looking stronger than ever. Moreover where others suggest the exchange model has run its course, we remain absolutely optimistic: This is a golden age for exchanges. As my latest book (“Victory or Death: — Blockchain, Cryptocurrency and the FinTech World”) also notes, the exchange model is at the epicentre of e-commerce. Lockdown has been unprecedented in human history and also delivered an incredible showcase of exchange excellence, as volumes have exploded and most markets have maintained that much vaunted 100% uptime, generally with a far from full complement of staff in their offices.

Exchange Invest remains the cheerleader for all forms of exchange and the parish bulletin enabling “The Exchange Of Information.” Whatever your market, we’re here to deliver “Liquidity! Accessibility! and Transparency! to every trading venue., one day at a time in blocks of a thousand issues — here’s to number 3k in early 2025!

To celebrate our 2000th issue milestone, we’re offering a free month trial to Exchange Invest — why don’t you join our unique community participating in The Exchange of Information?

Join us:

The Daily newsletter starts at $250 per annum, sign up for a 30 day free trial: Exchange Invest

Entirely Free you can sign up to the: Weekend edition w/ Podcast

Subscribe to our LiveStream community: In Patrick’s Opinion: IPO-VID LiveStream

My latest book is: Victory or Death: — Blockchain, Cryptocurrency and the FinTech World

Patrick L Young is a fintech pioneer (he wrote the first bestselling book on the topic in 1999 — “Capital Market Revolution!” FT), has run an exchange, been a lifelong entrepreneur and is a passionate advisor to, as well as builder, designer and developer of exchanges. His latest book is: Victory or Death: — Blockchain, Cryptocurrency and the FinTech World