Apple’s first physical retail store is located in the populous city of Mumbai.
Punit Paranjpe | Afp | Getty Images
Dimensional’s Matrix Book is an annual review of global returns that highlights the power of compound investing. It’s a fascinating document: you can look up the average growth rate of the S&P 500 for any year since 1926.
Buried on page 74 is a chapter on “World Stock Market Capitalization” which lists the market capitalization of most of the world country by country. No wonder the US is the world leader in terms of stock market value. The $40 trillion in stock market assets in the US accounts for nearly 60% of the value of all stocks in the world.
Global market capitalization by country
(in trillions, with % of global share)
- $40 trillion (59%)
- Japan $4.1 trillion (6%)
- United Kingdom $2.6 trillion (4%)
- China $2.5 trillion (4%)
- Canada $2.1 trillion (3%)
- France $1.8 trillion (3%)
- Switzerland $1.6 trillion (2%)
- India $1.4 trillion (2%)
- Australia $1.4 trillion (2%)
- Germany $1.3 trillion (2%)
Source: Dimensional Funds, 2023 Matrix Book
This is where it gets fun. My friend Ben Carlson pointed out that Apple’s current market cap of about $2.7 trillion this week exceeds the total market cap of the UK, the world’s third largest stock market.
Apple against the world
(market capitalization)
- Apple: $2.7 trillion
- UK: $2.6 trillion (595 companies)
- France: $1.8 trillion (235 companies)
- India: $1.4 trillion (1,242 companies)
- Germany: $1.3 trillion (255 companies)
Source: Dimensional Funds, 2023 Matrix Book
Apple is not only larger than all 595 companies listed in the UK, but also larger than all companies in France (235 companies) and India (1,242 companies).
With 255 companies, Apple is twice the size of the entire German stock market.
This reflects in part the extreme values placed on companies that are 1) successful and 2) growth oriented.
This focus on technology and growth can influence the character of a country’s market.
Germany, for example, is by far the largest country in Europe in terms of GDP, but its stock market is smaller than those of the UK, France and Italy. This is partly due to the fact that there are fewer listed companies than in the UK, but also because there are more value based companies in Germany. As a result, its market multiple – the price investors pay for a dollar or euro’s worth of profit – is significantly lower than that of the US
Regardless: Apple is bigger than the entire UK stock market? Twice as big as all of Germany? That’s great.
https://www.cnbc.com/2023/05/10/apple-vs-the-world-apples-bigger-than-entire-overseas-stock-markets-.html
