Markets
The 20 Largest Stock Exchanges in the World
Investors know the NYSE as a home for the world’s most important blue chip stocks. Massive companies like Walmart, Berkshire Hathaway, Exxon Mobil, and Coca-Cola are listed on the exchange along with roughly 2,400 other companies, and together they add up to an astounding $20 trillion in value.
But how do other exchanges around the world, such as the ones in Toronto or London, compare to the famed NYSE?
Comparing the Largest Stock Exchanges
Today’s infographic comes to us from StocksToTrade.com, and it compares the 20 largest stock exchanges in the world in terms of market capitalization, total companies listed, and number of years since they were founded.
The Oldest Exchange: Of the top 20 stock exchanges on the above list, the oldest can be found in Frankfurt. Originally the location of medieval trade fairs in the 11th century, Frankfurt quickly became an important center for commercial and monetary transactions. The “birth” of the stock exchange is said to have happened in 1585 when fair merchants decided to establish fixed currency exchange rates.
The Most Listed Companies: Established in 1875, the Bombay Stock Exchange was actually Asia’s first stock exchange. It has 5,749 listed public companies, which is the most of any of the top 20 exchanges. The majority of companies listed on the BSE are smallcaps, with an average market capitalization of just US$292 million per company.
The Largest Market Cap: As mentioned before, the NYSE takes the cake here with close to $20 trillion in market capitalization. There is a steep drop-off after the NYSE, which is followed by NASDAQ ($7 trillion), London Stock Exchange ($6 trillion), Tokyo Stock Exchange ($4 trillion), Shanghai Stock Exhcange ($4 trillion), and Hong Kong Stock exchange ($3 trillion).
In fact, only 16 exchanges have market capitalizations over $1 trillion. Here are those visualized by market cap on a map from our previous infographic that showed all of the stock exchanges in the world.
Impressively, these 16 exchanges account for about 87% of total stock exchange market capitalization.
AI
Charted: What are Retail Investors Interested in Buying in 2023?
What key themes and strategies are retail investors looking at for the rest of 2023? Preview: AI is a popular choice.
Charted: Retail Investors’ Top Picks for 2023
U.S. retail investors, enticed by a brief pause in the interest rate cycle, came roaring back in the early summer. But what are their investment priorities for the second half of 2023?
We visualized the data from Public’s 2023 Retail Investor Report, which surveyed 1,005 retail investors on their platform, asking “which investment strategy or themes are you interested in as part of your overall investment strategy?”
Survey respondents ticked all the options that applied to them, thus their response percentages do not sum to 100%.
Where Are Retail Investors Putting Their Money?
By far the most popular strategy for retail investors is dividend investing with 50% of the respondents selecting it as something they’re interested in.
Dividends can help supplement incomes and come with tax benefits (especially for lower income investors or if the dividend is paid out into a tax-deferred account), and can be a popular choice during more inflationary times.
| Investment Strategy | Percent of Respondents |
|---|---|
| Dividend Investing | 50% |
| Artificial Intelligence | 36% |
| Total Stock Market Index | 36% |
| Renewable Energy | 33% |
| Big Tech | 31% |
| Treasuries (T-Bills) | 31% |
| Electric Vehicles | 27% |
| Large Cap | 26% |
| Small Cap | 24% |
| Emerging Markets | 23% |
| Real Estate | 23% |
| Gold & Precious Metals | 23% |
| Mid Cap | 19% |
| Inflation Protection | 13% |
| Commodities | 12% |
Meanwhile, the hype around AI hasn’t faded, with 36% of the respondents saying they’d be interested in investing in the theme—including juggernaut chipmaker Nvidia. This is tied for second place with Total Stock Market Index investing.
Treasury Bills (30%) represent the safety anchoring of the portfolio but the ongoing climate crisis is also on investors’ minds with Renewable Energy (33%) and EVs (27%) scoring fairly high on the interest list.
Commodities and Inflation-Protection stocks on the other hand have fallen out of favor.
Come on Barbie, Let’s Go Party…
Another interesting takeaway pulled from the survey is how conversations about prevailing companies—or the buzz around them—are influencing trades. The platform found that public investors in Mattel increased 6.6 times after the success of the ‘Barbie’ movie.
Bud Light also saw a 1.5x increase in retail investors, despite receiving negative attention from their fans after the company did a beer promotion campaign with trans influencer Dylan Mulvaney.
Given the origin story of a large chunk of American retail investors revolves around GameStop and AMC, these insights aren’t new, but they do reveal a persisting trend.
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