Global Market Share Over 40 Years
Over the last 40 years, the world stock market has changed a lot. One clear trend is how market share moved between countries. The data shows how much each region holds in the total world market value. These changes help us understand how money flows across countries over long time periods.
The Strong Rise of the US Market
Around 40 years ago, the US market made up about 30 percent of the world market value (see the image below)
Over time, this number kept rising. Today, the US holds around 64 percent of the total world market value. This rise is very strong and has not been seen before on this scale.
Japan and Europe Over Time
Japan was once very strong. In the late 1980s, Japan alone had almost 40 percent of the world market value. After that, it fell sharply and stayed almost flat for many years. Today, Japan is only around 5 percent. Europe, without the UK, moved from about 10–12 percent to near 22–23 percent at one point. But over the last 25–30 years, it has again come down to nearly 11 percent.
Growth of Emerging Markets
Emerging markets were very small earlier, just 1–2 percent of the world market. Over time, they kept growing. Today, they are close to 11 percent. This steady rise shows that these markets are slowly becoming more important in the global system.
What the Next 30–40 Years May Bring
One clear idea from this long data is that emerging markets may keep doing better over time. As the US market becomes more mature, like Europe and Japan did earlier, its market share may fall. It is possible that the US share comes down from 64 percent to near 30 percent again, while emerging markets may rise to 25–30 percent.
Why This Shift Looks Possible
The US market is already very expensive compared to others. In the past, when US markets reached very high price levels, returns stayed weak for many years. Other markets now look more attractive when compared to the US. Because of this, emerging markets may play a big role in growing their share of the world market in the coming decades.
