Bespoke Investment Group has an interesting way of looking at China's rising economic might. One of the big news items of the day is that China's gross domestic product edged past Japan's in the second quarter, putting China on track to surpass Japan as the world's second-largest economy in 2010.
But what about China's stock market might? Using numbers from Bloomberg, Bespoke found that China's share of the world's market capitalization stands at 6.9 per cent right now. That's not far behind Japan's 8 per cent slice of the global market cap - and China appears to be closing the gap, fast.
Five years ago, China's market cap share was just 1.1 per cent, while Japan's was 10.3 per cent - meaning that the two markets have been moving in opposite directions recently. For that matter, the United States' market cap as a share of the world has also been shrinking - to 29.7 per cent today from 39.9 per cent five years ago.
David Berman