US Continues To Gain World Market Cap
The S&P 500 has risen around 20% year to date in 2021, and with that rally in US equities more broadly, the United States has gained 1.83 percentage points of the total world market cap. The US has consistently dominated in world market cap over the years, and the gains this year mean that the US currently holds a 43.13% share of total world market cap. Since the S&P 500 pre-COVID peak 2/19/20, right before COVID sent the index into a bear market, the US has added 2.27 percentage points to its share of world market cap. The only other country to have also added a significant share of at least one percentage point during that period is China. In early 2020, Chinese equities accounted for only 8.74%, and that share is now sitting at double digits. Those gains have borrowed heavily from countries like Japan, Hong Kong, and the UK which have all seen their share fall by more than half of one percentage point. For Japan and Hong Kong, those losses have primarily come in 2021 whereas the UK has only shed 0.1 percentage points this year. China similarly has seen its share of world market cap pullback this year as government crackdowns have pushed equities lower. Meanwhile, India has seen a decent gain of 0.38 percentage points. Behind the US, India has gained the most this year.