The official blessing by federal regulators to launch a nationally traded Texas Stock Exchange has Dallas preparing for a financial explosion that aims to challenge New York City’s dominance as the world’s market trading capital.

The Securities & Exchange Commission’s formal approval of TXSE is the first for a fully integrated American stock exchange in decades. TXSE is now in full gear for a 2026 launch that has the blessing of President Trump and others looking for an alternative to New York’s highly regulated and “woke” exchanges, as some critics refer to them.

“Real competition for corporate listings in the United States has finally arrived,” the founder and CEO of TXSE Group Inc., James Lee, said in a press statement noting that TXSE is ready to operationalize its own custom system to match buyers and sellers of stocks and compete with trading giants such as the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq.

“Today’s approval marks a pivotal moment in our effort to build a world-class exchange rooted in alignment, transparency, and partnership with issuers and investors,” said Mr. Lee. 

Plans for the new exchange have been in the works for nearly two years with the help of early investors BlackRock, Citadel Securities, and Charles Schwab, among others. Its development has benefited a host of public companies in the Dallas-Fort Worth area that have seen Texas’s pro-business environment double values in the last five years. The new Dallas-based exchange will lead to even more companies relocating to Texas, Mr. Lee says. 

The approval for the Texas Stock Exchange, known colloquially as “Y’all Street,” challenges the primacy of the NYSE and Nasdaq not only financially, but politically as well. 

Anticipating that the new exchange will be a “powerhouse,” Senator Ted Cruz predicted that the it will drive an exodus of corporations and investors from New York’s economic, social, and corporate governance-driven investing. 

“If you want to go and not have a woke stock exchange trying to impose political ideology on you, but instead simply have an avenue to raise capital, Texas is going to be the place to do it,” Mr. Cruz, who wrote a comment to the SEC in support of the exchange, told Fox Business Network.  

Mr. Cruz added that he expects more investors will be looking to escape New York if Democratic-Socialist candidate Zohran Mamdani wins the mayor’s race.

“New York is run by crazy people. Mamdani, if he’s elected, is a Marxist. You are going to see people who believe in free enterprise, people who believe in property rights, people who don’t want a jihadist radical who wants to defund police fleeing New York City,” he said.

A spokesman for the exchange told the Sun that despite the inclusion of BlackRock, which critics say operates with a left-leaning ESG agenda, and statements from politicians suggesting otherwise, “TXSE is apolitical. There is nothing ideological about the exchange.”

The launch of the exchange comes as New York faces stark changes in its role as the center of financial power. Banking operation JPMorgan Chase already has more employees in Texas than in New York.

On Thursday, the Federal Housing Finance Agency, the structure that has held mortgage lenders Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in conservatorship since 2008, announced it was shuttering the lenders’ New York offices in response to Attorney General Letitia James’s politically driven pursuit of President Trump.

“We are shutting down the two New York offices for Fannie and Freddie as a result of Letitia James’ corrupt and dangerous business practices in the state,” a source close to the Federal Housing Finance Agency told Fox News Digital.

Responding to the finance agency’s decision, Mr. Trump posted on Truth Social Saturday, saying, “Corrupt Letitia James is costing New York State Hundreds of Billions of Dollars in lost business.”

“Until this ‘SCUM’ is removed from the Attorney General’s Office, no company will move to New York, and few companies will be using the New York Stock Exchange, or NASDAQ, for going Public. The new Texas Exchange will be taking ALL of this business away, and we’re talking Hundreds of Billions of Dollars!” he wrote. 

The president’s post contributes to speculation that the Trump administration may be looking at a potential initial public offering on the TXSE for the two mortgage giants under the moniker of the Great American Mortgage Corporation. The TXSE spokesman said the speculation is inaccurate.

The Texas Stock Exchange says its mission is to reduce the burden on going and staying public, which it claims has triggered the decline in publicly traded companies over the years.

“We have spent years speaking with companies about their frustrations with the public markets, and those conversations are still ongoing,” the spokesman told the Sun.

In the 2023’s post-Covid period, just 151 companies went public on the NYSE and Nasdaq. That’s compared to 496 in 2024 and 361 for the year as of September 2025. Texas has ranked third in new public corporate registrations, in front of New York but below California and corporate-friendly Delaware. 

Mr. Lee says that Texas’s ranking for new public companies is going to rise as the Lone Star State’s legislature pushes for a more pro-business environment.

“As the one and only national securities exchange built and headquartered in Texas, we are proud to have been the catalyst for the development of capital markets in our great state,” Mr. Lee said, calling the $161 million raised so far for the TXSE “the most well-capitalized equities exchange to ever be approved by the SEC.”