With businesses leaving to list elsewhere and a drying up of fresh capital across its trading floor, the London Stock Exchange (LSE) seems to be in a period of flux. Now, rumours are that global miners Rio Tinto and Glencore - with a combined worth of ~$210 billion - are looking to leave the LSE and/or raise capital elsewhere. You'd have to rewind the clock 17 years to 2008's global financial meltdown to find more companies have left one of the world’s oldest trading houses more than it did last year. An eye-whopping 88 listed businesses left their exposure to trading regulatory laws and offices in the UK and just a fifth of that number onboarded to the colloquially known ‘footsie’, or FTSE, exchange, through initial public offerings (IPOs). Companies worth ~14% of the total value of the FTSE have ditched London for overseas listings since 2020. But why?One reason cited is London’s Stamp Duty Reserve Tax (or Robin Hood tax, or Tobin tax), which requires investors to pay a 0.5% tax on transactions when buying UK shares in a company. In a less globalised world, 20 years ago, they could have gotten away with it. Now, it's a veritable noose around the neck of UK trade, as investors can list elsewhere without incurring thos