Visualizing The World’s Stock Exchanges

There are 60 major stock exchanges throughout the world, and their range of sizes is quite surprising.

As Visual Capitalist’s Jeff Desjardin notes, at the high end of the spectrum is the mighty NYSE, representing $18.5 trillion in market capitalization, or about 27% of the total market for global equities.

At the lower end? Stock exchanges on the tiny islands of Malta, Cyprus, and Bermuda all range from just $1 billion to $4 billion in value. Even added together, these three exchanges make up just 0.01% of total market capitalization.

The Trillion Dollar Club

There are 16 exchanges that are a part of the “$1 Trillion Dollar Club” with more than $1 trillion in market capitalization. This elite group, with familiar names such as the NYSE, Nasdaq, LSE, Deutsche Borse, TMX Group, and Japan Exchange Group, comprise 87% of the world’s total value of equities.

Added together, the 44 names outside of this aforementioned group combine for just $9 trillion, or 13%, of the world’s total market capitalization.

Northern Dominance

From a geographical perspective, it is the Northern Hemisphere that is dominant. North America and Europe both hold 40.6% and 19.5% respectively of the world’s markets, and the vast majority of Asia’s 33.3% lies north of the equator in places like Shenzhen, Hong Kong, Tokyo, and Shanghai.

Notable exchanges that are south of the equator include the Australian Securities Exchange, the Indonesia Stock Exchange, the Johannesburg Stock Exchange and the Brazilian BM&F Bovespa.