Wednesdays are SwaggaLIVE MONEY Days
Ownership is the part of the culture nobody teaches. This is the working list of Black-owned and Black-led companies you can buy on a public exchange, the offers and listings worth diarising, and a calculator that shows what a steady monthly amount actually builds.
Any regulated brokerage that trades on Nasdaq and the NYSE can buy the US names below. For African and Caribbean listings you need a local broker plus a clearing-house account — NGX needs CSCS, the Jamaica Stock Exchange needs JCSD.
Most Black-owned listed companies are small. Small companies swing harder in both directions and can be thinly traded, which means the price can move on modest volume. Read the filings before the headlines.
Conviction is not a position size. Decide the maximum share of your money any single small company can hold before you buy, and keep the rest broad.
A fixed monthly amount removes the guesswork about timing and keeps you out of screenshot-driven decisions. The calculator below is there to make the arithmetic visible.
Education, not a projection of any company's performance.
Set what you can put in each month and see how ownership could compound. The growth rate is the real 5-year annualised return of the holdings you pick, blended by your split — history, not a forecast.
$36,627
$25,000
$11,627
Percentages of every contribution, with each holding's own 5-year annualised return from real closing prices. Small companies move harder than the broad market, so most people keep an index sleeve alongside them.
Returns are price returns from real closing prices over the last 5 years and exclude dividends, fees and taxes. A holding that did well in the past can lose money next year. This is education, not investment advice.
A company appears here only when its Black ownership, founding or leadership is a matter of public record.
| Ticker | Company | Exchange | Sector | Why it is on the list |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| UONE | Urban One | Nasdaq | Media / Radio / Culture | Built by Cathy Hughes, the first Black woman to head a publicly traded US company. |
| UONEK | Urban One (Class D) | Nasdaq | Media / Radio / Culture | The non-voting share class of the same company — usually the more liquid line. |
| BYFC | Broadway Financial (City First Bank) | Nasdaq | Banking / Community finance | The largest Black-led minority depository institution in the United States. |
| CARV | Carver Bancorp | OTCQX | Banking / Community finance | Founded in Harlem in 1948 to bank communities other lenders would not. Voluntarily left Nasdaq for OTCQX, so there is no live Nasdaq quote. |
| RLJ | RLJ Lodging Trust | NYSE | Real estate / Hotel REIT | The hotel REIT founded by BET's Robert L. Johnson. |
| LOW | Lowe's Companies | NYSE | Retail / Home improvement | Run by Marvin Ellison, one of the few Black CEOs of a Fortune 100 company. |
| EXC | Exelon | Nasdaq | Utilities / Energy | Led by Calvin Butler, one of the largest utilities in the country by customers served. |
| IFF | International Flavors & Fragrances | NYSE | Specialty ingredients | Led by Frank Clyburn — the flavour and scent science behind food and beauty brands. |
| SAIC | SAIC (Science Applications International) | Nasdaq | Technology / Government services | Led by Toni Townes-Whitley, a Black woman running a multi-billion-dollar tech contractor. |
| ATGE | Adtalem Global Education | NYSE | Education | Led by Steve Beard; its schools graduate a large share of Black nurses and physicians in the US. |
Nasdaq (UONE / UONEK)
Urban One is the radio, digital and TV company built by Cathy Hughes — the first Black woman to head a publicly traded American company. It is one of the few places culture-first Black media shows up as a listed share you can actually buy.
Nasdaq — UONE quoteNasdaq (CARV)
Carver was founded in Harlem in 1948 to serve communities other banks would not. It is one of the small handful of Black-managed banks in the US that ordinary investors can own a piece of on a public exchange.
Nasdaq — CARV quoteNasdaq (BYFC)
Broadway Financial and City First merged to create the biggest Black-led bank holding company in America, focused on affordable housing and small business lending in underserved neighbourhoods.
Nasdaq — BYFC quoteNew York Stock Exchange (RLJ)
RLJ is a listed hotel real-estate trust founded by Robert L. Johnson, who built BET and became the first Black American billionaire. It is a working example of moving from media ownership into asset ownership.
NYSE — RLJ quoteDates move. Always confirm against the exchange and the official offer document before you move money.
Africa's largest-ever public offer opens 14 September
NGX Invest lists every open Nigerian offer in one place
Kenya keeps signalling a return of new listings
Egypt keeps selling slices of state companies to the market
Africa's deepest market keeps courting new listings
North Africa's most active listings push outside Cairo
Caribbean-owned companies going public at small-business scale
Where small Canadian companies go public — Toronto's on-ramp
New Black-owned listings, IPO dates and deadlines, straight to your inbox on Wednesdays.
New listing alerts · SwaggaLIVE MONEY
IPO dates and deadlines, market updates, and the Black-owned companies subscription guide — sent to you, not buried in a feed. Pick what you want to hear about.
Investment notice
Swagga MONEY is journalism and education. SwaggaLIVE is not a broker, a dealer or a financial adviser, does not sell shares, does not take orders and does not receive commission on anything covered here. Confirm every figure and every channel against the official offer document, the exchange and your national regulator before you move money. Investing carries the risk of losing what you put in.
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