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.