Goldman Sachs has made some interesting observations about the relative sizes of U.S. companies compared to Europeans.
Here are some light hearted comparisons (based on total market capitalisation data)
- Apple alone is the same size as the whole Spanish equity market and bigger than Italy.
- The whole Italian stock market is worth about the same as Walmart and Microsoft combined the S&Ps 3rd and 6th biggest companies
- The German equity market (Europe’s biggest economy) is no bigger than the S&Ps 4 biggest companies
- The 40 biggest French companies (the CAC40) is no bigger than the US top 5
- Greece is no bigger than Salesforce.com, a company that has been public for a little over 10 years
- Starbucks is the same market capitalisation as the whole of Ireland
A US equity map of Europe – US companies shown in each country equate to the size of total market capitalization in the country
Europe’s 600 biggest companies (the Stoxx600) are less than half the size of the S&P 500.
It’s also interesting that even in the context of Europe the Swiss market alone is bigger than Spain and the Netherlands combined. The UK 100 biggest companies (FTSE 100) are bigger than the CAC and Dax put together.