Graph: The Price of Gold

Today, we look at the historical gold price (nominal) from 1972 (the US left the gold standard in 1971) to now, in the graph below.

Data Source: Bundesbank; Prices are monthly averages of London afternoon fix spot prices

As you can see from the graphs, the gold price per ounce stayed in a band of US$200 – 500 from the 1980s to the mid-2000s. Then it started increasingly rapidly, together with the rest of the commodities. The average gold price for January 2012 already reached US$1,656 per troy ounce.

Why has the gold price gone up by so much? The price of gold, like that of most commodities, is driven by supply and demand as well as speculation.

On the demand side, gold demand includes:

•  Household gold demand, mainly from Asian countries like China (gold ownership for Chinese citizens was legalized in 2004) and India, with a large part of it in jewellery
• Central bank gold reserves buying
•  Increasingly, a large part of gold demand has been from investment in gold.
• Currency (gold coins)
• Electronics, Dentistry and other industrial uses
• Gold hedging by producers (though these are at very low levels now due to the high gold prices)

On the supply side, gold supply includes:

• Gold production from gold mines
• Recycling of old gold – Most of the gold ever mined still exists in some form or other, and could come back into the market at the right price.

Would the gold price go up further? It depends on all of the above factors and the market sentiment.

  

If you like price per gram instead, here’s the chart. (This uses the conversion: 1 ounce of fine gold = 31.1034768 g)

Data Source: Bundesbank; Prices are monthly averages of London afternoon fix spot prices

You can also find here a comparison of the price of gold vs the cash cost of mining gold in recent years.

Data Source: Bundesbank; Graphs: Generated by me

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