In what could certainly be used in the textbook for Globalization 101, below is a table highlighting the percentage of world market cap for the largest countries in the world. For each country, we show where its share of world market cap currently stands as well as where it stood five years ago and at the start of 2011. To make the list, the country's stock market has to make up at least 1% of total world market cap.
As shown, US equities still make up the largest portion of world market cap at 29.14%. However, it has lost 0.54 percentage points this year alone as well as 6.91 percentage points over the last five years. While not shown in the table, the US made up a whopping 45% of world market cap back in 2003, so it has experienced a major decline over the last eight years. Our loss has been China's gain, as it has seen its share of world market cap skyrocket from just 1.36% five years ago to 7.87% today. In August 2006, China had just the 15th largest equity market in the world. Today, China ranks second ahead of Japan, the UK and Hong Kong.
Japan has seen its share of world market cap decline the second most behind the US over the last five years. Surprisingly given the earthquake it experienced in March, Japan has seen its share of market cap increase so far in 2011.
China and Russia have seen their shares increase the most in 2011, while the US, India, Australia and Taiwan have seen their shares fall the most this year.
[aa] Canada's market cap performance (chart below) shows a striking resemblance to that of the BRICs. [aa]
Below we provide historical charts of percentage of world market cap for the ten largest countries at the moment.
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