Wall St firms trailing US stockmarket boom

New York

WALL Street firms have failed to keep up with a stock market that has boomed for more than five years, losing ground to industries including technology and healthcare.

There were just 32 US financial firms among the world's largest 500 companies by market capitalisation when trading closed on Thursday in New York. That compares with 41 at the end of 2006, the last full year before the credit crisis. Some companies that remain on the list - like Citigroup Inc and American International Group Inc (AIG), - have shrunk to a fraction of the size of tech giants like Apple Inc and Google Inc.