World Stock Exchanges Comparing

Largest World Stock Exchanges Comparing

 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 small caps, 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 Exchange ($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.