The US stock market is worth more than the world's next 13 largest combined

Market value by country, 2005 to 2026

Historical columns: year-end market capitalization of listed domestic companies in current US dollars, from the World Bank, which takes the figures from the World Federation of Exchanges. The United Kingdom drops out of the series after 2014 apart from 2021 and 2022, and France after 2018, so their later cells show the nearest year the World Bank has, with that year in brackets, and no 20-year multiple is given. Saudi Arabia only enters the series in 2010. Australia's 2025 figure is $2.05 trillion. The World Bank does not cover Taiwan, so Taiwan's historical figures are Taiwan Stock Exchange main-board market value only, from the exchange's 2010 fact book and the Securities and Futures Bureau, converted at the central bank's year-end rates of NT$32.85 and NT$31.27 per dollar. Taiwan's 6.3x is calculated on that main-board basis.

The India row needs a note. The World Bank series has Indian listed companies at $4.3 trillion at the end of 2023 and $5.1 trillion at the end of 2024, both close to the Bombay Stock Exchange's own counts for those dates. Its 2025 entry is $10.6 trillion. The exchange's own count crossed $5 trillion again in June 2026 and stood at 483 trillion rupees, about $5.1 trillion, on July 29. The World Bank's notes for the series do not explain the 2025 jump, so we have left India out of the 20-year growth column. On the World Bank's own figures through 2024, India grew from $620 billion to $5.1 trillion, a little over eight times.

Korea and Japan, two different paths

Korea's growth looks different depending on the yardstick. In dollars its market grew 3.8 times over 20 years, close to the world average of 3.5 times and behind Taiwan's 6.3 times. Relative to the size of its economy, the World Bank puts Korean market value at 147% of GDP at the end of 2025, up from 74% in 2005. The same ratio for the United States went from 130% to 224%. Korea's GDP nearly doubled over the period, from $970 billion to $1.87 trillion.

Japan is the outlier at the top of the table. Its listed companies were worth $4.6 trillion in 2005, the second-largest market in the world at the time, and $7.6 trillion in 2025. Japan's dollar GDP over the same period fell, from $4.88 trillion to $4.44 trillion, as the yen weakened from around 118 to the dollar to 156.

What the numbers do not measure

Three things about the data. Market value is not the same as investor return: new listings, share issuance, buybacks and delistings all change a market's total value, so growth in total market value should not be read as a shareholder's investment return. Because the World Bank converts at year-end exchange rates, a weak local currency drags a market's dollar value down even in a year when local prices rise, which is part of the Japan story and part of why Korea's 2024 figure of $1.56 trillion sits below its 2020 figure of $2.18 trillion. And the series counts domestic companies only, so foreign companies listed in New York are not part of the US figure.

What changed in 2026

The historical comparison ends in 2025, and the first eight months of 2026 moved two of these markets a long way. The Korea Exchange reported that the combined value of Korean listed companies closed at 6,047.9 trillion won on April 27, which the Korea Times put at $4.07 trillion, the first time Korea had crossed $4 trillion. The Kospi closed at 6,615.03 that day. By June 1 the Kospi was trading above 8,800 and Money Today reported total market value of 7,172 trillion won. The index has since fallen back to 6,687.21, its close on September 4, a decline of about 24% from that June level. We covered the drop in the September 2 oil shock and the losses Korean retail investors are carrying.

Taiwan also climbed the global rankings. Bloomberg data cited by Anue put Taiwan's total market value, main board and TPEx combined, at $4.95 trillion on May 25, ahead of India's $4.92 trillion on the same basis, making it the world's fifth-largest market by Bloomberg's count. TSMC (TSM) alone accounts for more than 40% of it. The Taiwan Stock Exchange's own year-in-review, reported by the Taipei Times, had Taiwan ranked eighth at the end of 2025 with NT$94.36 trillion in main-board value. That ranking counted the main board only, so it is not directly comparable with Bloomberg's.

The next World Bank update will add year-end 2026 figures. Korea's listed companies were worth $2.76 trillion at the end of 2025 on the World Bank series and about $4.5 trillion at the end of August. Taiwan's main board and TPEx together were worth NT$101.8 trillion at the end of 2025 on the Securities and Futures Bureau's figures, about $3.25 trillion at the year-end rate, and $4.95 trillion on Bloomberg's May 25 count, which covers the same two markets. Each has added roughly $1.7 trillion.

Methodology and sources

Latest 2026 column: the most recent total each market has published, so the dates differ and the column is a snapshot, not a ranking. The China, Japan, Hong Kong, India, Korea, Canada, United Kingdom, Germany, Australia and Switzerland entries are local-currency totals converted at September 4 exchange rates. The US, Taiwan, France and Saudi Arabia entries are dollar figures as reported by Siblis Research, Bloomberg, marketcap.company and the Saudi Exchange. Bloomberg's Taiwan figure covers the main board and the TPEx over-the-counter market together, a broader basis than the historical columns; the TPEx market was worth NT$7.4 trillion at the end of 2025, about 7% of the combined total, on the Securities and Futures Bureau's figures.

2026 sources: Siblis Research for the US; the Shanghai and Shenzhen exchanges' September 4 totals of 69.5 trillion and 43.8 trillion yuan; BSE-listed value of 483 trillion rupees; the Japan Exchange Group's 1,414 trillion yen; HKEX's 47.2 trillion Hong Kong dollars; Bloomberg's May 25 figure for Taiwan as reported by Anue; and for Korea the 6,080 trillion won implied by Korea Exchange figures reported by the Seoul Economic Daily. Canada is TSX and TSX Venture combined, C$7,081 billion at June 30, from the TMX Market Intelligence Group's June report. Germany is Deutsche Boerse's market capitalization of domestic shares, 2,556 billion euros at August 31, as carried by CEIC. Switzerland is the full market capitalization of the SPI, SIX's all-share index, 1,879 billion francs at June 30, from SIX's index factsheets. The United Kingdom is the FTSE All-Share, which covers about 98% of UK market value, at 2,924 billion pounds of net market capitalization on August 31 from the FTSE Russell factsheet; net means free-float adjusted, so it runs below a full count and is not directly comparable with the full-value figures in the rest of the column. France is the combined value of Paris-listed companies in August as aggregated by marketcap.company, a company-level tally rather than an exchange release. Australia is ASX market capitalization of 3,316 billion Australian dollars at July 31, as carried by CEIC. Saudi Arabia is the Saudi Exchange's main-market total at August 31, SAR 9.54 trillion, which the exchange's monthly report states as $2.544 trillion at the riyal's 3.75 peg, as reported by Al Bilad.