Graph: Largest Stock Exchanges in the World

The largest stock exchanges in the world, by total market capitalization of firms listed on the exchange, is in the chart below.

Data Source: World Federation of Exchanges

Other than the top 7 exchanges, also mentioned in an earlier post, the next tier of exchanges include the following:
viii) TMX Group - This is the group of Canadian exchanges.
ix) BM&FBOVESPA - from Brazil
x) Australian SE

In terms of average market capitalization of firms listed, other notable exchanges are the Deutsche Borse (Germany), SIX Swiss Exchange, NASDAQ OMX Nordic Exchange, Johannesburg SE and MICEX (Russia).

Data Source: World Federation of Exchanges

Many of the stock exchanges cater largely to the listing of their domestic firms. There are a few exceptions in these notable categories:

A) Major exchanges, for example: NYSE Euronext (US) [22.5% foreign firms], NASDAQ OMX [11.1%], London SE Group [20.7%], NYSE Euronext (Europe) [12.9%]

B) Regional exchanges, for example: Johannesburg SE [12.2%], Singapore Exchange [40.2%, a large proportion catering to companies from China], Mexican Exchange [73.1%]

Data Source: World Federation of Exchanges

Check out a description of the top 14 stock exchanges here.


Data Source: World Federation of Exchanges; Graphs: Generated by me

Graph: Stock Exchanges of the World

The following chart captures the market capitalization and number of listed firms on the world's stock exchanges.

Data Source: World Federation of Exchanges

From the chart, the largest or major stock exchanges in the world (as defined by total market capitalization and average market capitalization of firms listed on the exchange) are the following:

i) NYSE Euronext (US) - This is by far the largest stock exchange in the world in terms of total market capitalization (close to US$12 trillion) and average market capitalization (about US$5 billion). No other exchange comes close.
ii) NASDAQ OMX
iii) Tokyo SE Group
iv) London SE Group
v) NYSE Euronext (Europe)
vi) Shanghai SE
vii) Hong Kong Exchanges

See a subsequent post for further detailed data of the largest stock exchanges in the world.

Note that some exchanges belonging to the same company are classified separately, for example the NASDAQ exchanges (NASDAQ OMX and NASDAQ OMX Nordic Exchanges) and the NYSE Euronext Exchanges.

Data Source: World Federation of Exchanges; Graphs: Generated by me

Graph: Major Producers of Poultry

This graph shows the top producers of poultry, by country, in the world. As you can see from the chart, a large majority of the poultry produced in the world is chicken. The top 3 countries USA, China and Brazil account for a large majority of the poultry production.

Data Source: UN FAO

Next, let us look at the breakdown of the poultry production by the type of fowl. For chicken production (see chart below), the position of the top countries do not change that much. Basically, only France drops out of the top 10 list, as it produces turkey and duck meat as a significant percentage of their poultry production.

Data Source: UN FAO

If we look at the next series of charts - production of duck, goose & guinea fowl and turkey, we can see some dominant countries in the production of these meat. China is the largest producer of duck by a large margin, though France is also a significant duck producer. Similarly, China is the largest producer of goose & guinea fowl. As for turkey, USA is the largest producer by a large margin, though Germany, Brazil, France and Italy are significant producers too. To see which countries are the top producers of eggs, you can see this article here.

Data Source: UN FAO

Data Source: UN FAO

Data Source: UN FAO

Data Source: UN FAO; Graphs: Generated by me

Graph: Egg Production in the World

The number of eggs produced in the world in a year is quite significant - about 1.3 trillion. The vast majority of these eggs are from the chicken (1.2 trillion), as you can see from the graph for 2010 below.

Data Source: UN FAO

If we look at the countries that produce the most eggs in the world, we can see that China is by far on the top of the list in terms of both chicken eggs and other bird eggs. The other countries are far behind, though USA and India produce significant numbers of chicken eggs too. To see which countries are the top producers of poultry, you can see this article here.

Data Source: UN FAO

Data Source: UN FAO

Data Source: UN FAO; Graphs: Generated by me

Graph: The Largest Animals in The World

This is a graph on a lighter topic - which are the largest animals in the world?

Data Source: Wikipedia

The largest animal (and mammal) in the world is the Blue Whale.
The largest fish is the Whale Shark.
The largest land animal (and land mammal) is the African Bush Elephant.
The largest reptile is the Saltwater Crocodile.
The largest snake is the Green Ananconda.
The largest lizard is the Komodo Dragon.
The largest bird is the Ostrich.
The largest amphibian is the Chinese Giant Salamander.

The Blue Whale is by far the largest, as you can see from the graph. Of course, other whales are of similar (though smaller) sizes.

More details on the largest animals can be found here.

Data Source: Wikipedia; Graph: Generated by me

Graph: World – Population and GDP by Country (Part 3)

This graph continues from two earlier posts. It shows the top 15 countries by GDP per capita. These are essentially the dots that are clustered in the left part of the chart in Part 1.

Data Source: World Bank

You can see that the list is dominated by small / smallish countries (e.g. Monaco, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Bermuda, Norway, Switzerland, Denmark, Macau, Sweden and Ireland), but there are a notable number of large ones there too (e.g. United States and Canada).

See Part1 and Part 2 here.

Data Source: World Bank; Graph: Generated by me

Graph: World – Population and GDP by Country (Part 2)

This graph is a continuation of an earlier post, showing the GDP and population by country, as well as the GDP per capita (which is the gradient of each data point). It zooms into the “2^nd tier” of countries (see the red box in the chart below).

Data Source: World Bank

This next chart zooms into the red box from the chart above.

Data Source: World Bank

Out of this 2^nd tier group highlighted, we can see 2 main groups:

a)   2^nd tier high-income group: This group consists of the next tier of rich and big European countries (France, UK, Italy, maybe Spain and Netherlands), Canada, Australia and South Korea. Their GDP per capita are all high, ranging from $20,000 to $47,000.

b)    2^nd tier middle-income group: This group consists of the next tier of large developing economies – Brazil, Russia, Mexico and Turkey. Their GDP per capita all hover around the world GDP per capita – ranging from $9,000 to $11,000. We can call this group the “BRMT” group, but I guess this acronym doesn’t sound as nice as “BRIC”.

See Part1 and Part 3 here.

Data Source: World Bank; Graph: Generated by me

Graph: World – Population and GDP by Country (Part 1)

This graph shows the GDP and population by country, as well as the GDP per capita (which is the gradient of each data point). This is similar to an earlier post on Africa. It illustrates the largest economies in the world by GDP and population.

Data Source: World Bank

Some points of note:

a)      US: The United States is still by far the largest economy in the world in terms of GDP, with a 2010 GDP of US$14.6 trillion. Its GDP per capita of $47,199 puts it at around 11^th in the world (see here).

b)      EU: The EU, if it were a country, would have a larger GDP than the US – it has a combined GDP of U$16.2 trillion. However, its GDP per capita of $32,311 is much lower than the US.

c)      China: China is now the 2^nd largest economy in the world in terms of GDP. Due to its large population, its GDP per capita (at $4,428) is around the median ($4,560).

d)      Japan and Germany: Japan and Germany are the 3^rd and 4^th largest economies in the world. 

e)      India, Indonesia and Brazil: These are highlighted here as they are economies with large populations. India and Indonesia are still relatively low in their total GDP, as well as GDP per capita, which are below the median. Brazil, on the other hand, has a GDP per capita that is above the median. These are potential next tier of fast growing countries.

See Part 2 and Part 3 here.

Data Source: World Bank; Graph: Generated by me

Graph: Africa - GDP per capita

From an earlier post, there are a number of African countries with GDP per capita higher than the mean (i.e. the countries above the mean line in the graph below) that we did not look at. 

Data Source: World Bank

Zooming into these countries, we can see which of the African countries have the highest GDP per capita.

Data Source: World Bank

The economies of many of these countries are dominated by the oil & gas industry (e.g. Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Algeria, Angola, Republic of Congo) or natural resources (e.g. Namibia). Other countries rely on tourism (e.g. Seychelles, Mauritius), while others have more diversified economies (e.g. South Africa, Tunisia, Cape Verde). Many of these are also countries that have small populations (e.g. Seychelles: 87,000; Cape Verde: 0.5m; Mauritius: 1.3m; Gabon: 1.5m) or uncertain population numbers (e.g. Equatorial Guinea: 0.7m estimated, but other estimates range up to 1.2m). 

Of course, these countries may also have high income disparities, so the poverty levels can still be quite high there.

Data Source: World Bank; Graphs: Generated by me; Country Sources: CIA – The World Factbook

Graph: Africa - GDP and Governance

This graph shows the governance score for the top 20 African countries (by GDP). The scores range from around -2.5 to 2.5, with higher values corresponding to better governance.

Data Source: World Bank

We can see that the countries with scores close to or greater than zero are South Africa, Tunisia, Ghana, Botswana, Namibia and Mauritius. Coupled with the findings from a previous post on population, GDP and GDP per capita, it seems that only South Africa appears in both charts, i.e. having high population / GDP / GDP per capita, as well as having a good governance score. Further analysis could look at these countries with good governance scores and evaluate other parameters and hence their potential for profitable investments.

Data Source: World Bank; Graph: Generated by me