Washington is NASDAQ country

More than any other part of the United States, Washington is NASDAQ Country.

The market capitalization of the 10 largest companies in Washington that have shares that trade on NASDAQ is $469 billion as of Dec. 21. Market capitalization is calculated by multiplying the value of one share by the number of shares outstanding.

The value of the 10 largest companies in Washington that have shares that trade on the New York Stock Exchange is just $59 billion. The combined NYSE value is 12.5 percent the combined NASDAQ value in the state. That is almost exactly the opposite of the picture in the other 49 states, where NYSE has a decided advantage.

The NASDAQ advantage goes back to the rise of Microsoft in the ’90s, but even then NASDAQ didn’t have the advantage over NYSE that it does today. A number of things have happened. The biggest NYSE company, Boeing, left town. The second and third largest NYSE companies have both been hurt by the real-estate meltdown. Weyerhaeuser is down 15 percent and Washington Mutual is down 70 percent.

In most parts of the country, as a company gets bigger it gravitates to the NYSE. That hasn’t happened in Washington.

The four most valuable companies in Washington are each more valuable than the most valuable NYSE company. It seems that NYSE expected those companies to move automatically and neglected marketing. Now, a pattern is in place that big companies in Washington simply stay with NASDAQ.

NYSE officials have said that tech companies tend stay on NASDAQ. That argument works for Microsoft, Amazon and Expedia, but doesn’t explain Costco, PACCAR, Starbucks and Expeditors International.

NYSE enjoyed small flurry of activity in the late ’90s, persuading Washington Mutual and Nordstrom to move to NYSE. More recently, Safeco moved to NYSE but the really big prizes continue to elude NYSE.

Tim Raetzloff is owner of Abarim Business Computers, Inc. in Edmonds, 425-670-8167 and creator of Abarim Stock Index.