** Update: *** Go to The Number of Listed Companies by Country 2016 ***

Have you ever wondered how many stocks are listed in the major stock exchanges of the world?. I did and this post is the result of my research. My source for this piece is the “World Federation of Exchanges(WFE)“. It is an association of 56 regulated exchanges around the world.

Data used here is as of the end of November,2008. There a total of 46,678 stocks traded in the member exchanges. This count does not include investment funds. The following tables show the various exchanges and the number of domestic and foreign listings in them:

1.Americas

[TABLE=128]

2.Asia-Pacific

[TABLE=129]

3.Europe-Middle East-Africa

[TABLE=130]

Source: World Federation of Exchanges(WFE)

Analysis:

• The exchange with the the lowest number listings – just 19 – is the Malta SE in the country of Malta in Europe. Though there may be exchanges in the world that may have fewer companies listed. But those exchanges are not listed here since they are not members of the World Federation of Exchanges.
• Luxemborg SE has the most foreign companies listed (87%) followed by Bermuda SE (69%).
• The Bombay Stock Exchange in India has the largest number of equities listed.
• While foreign companies represent 14% of the stocks listed in the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE Group), they accounted for $11.4 Trillion of the $27.1 Trillion market values as of Dec 31,2007.
• Just 1% of the listed companies in the Tokyo SE are non-Japanese companies.
• The tiny city state of Singapore has 458 listed companies but 40% of them are foreign companies.
• 22% of the listings in the London SE are non-British companies.
• The BME Spanish Exchanges in Spain has more than four times the number of listing in the Deutsche Borse.
• USA is the number one in terms of stocks listed. The three organized stock exchanges in the USA (NYSE, Amex and NASDAQ) have a total of 5,598 companies trading in them.The number two is Bombay SE in India and the third is The TSX group of Canada.
• A total of 859 foreign equities trade in the big 3 US exchanges.

Note:
Deutsche Bourse : Excluding the market segment “Freiverkehr” (unofficial regulated market)
Lima SE : Includes 26 foreign companies with shares negotiated under a special modality
Korea Exchange : includes Kosdaq market data
OMX Nordic Exchange : OMX includes Copenhagen, Helsinki, Iceland, Stockholm, Tallinn, Riga and Vilnius Stock Exchanges
Singapore Exchange : Main Board & Sesdaq
TSX Group : includes companies listed on TSX Venture
Tehran SE : Some 90 companies have been relegated to the “Unofficial Board” which is a “Temporary Board”

**Update: For the 2015 data, go to: The Number of Listed Companies by Country (TFS, Mat 14, 2016)