What countries trade stocks the most ?

Although stock trading is quickly becoming the most popular forms of trading online, it’s important to note that not that many people are currently involved in the markets. Well, at least the interest isn’t as diversified across the world as it is for things like Forex or gold or even cryptocurrencies.

No, the stock trading “mania” as some US traders like to call it is much more prevalent in developed nations than developing nations. That much can be understood as the most profitable companies, which directly translates into profitable stocks are located within countries like the United States, China, United Kingdom and pretty much all of the European Union.

These countries drove most of their investors from local populations, but it’s not too surprising to see millions of traders come from outside, third world countries. It’s even common to see several courses or even universities teach stock trading based on foreign markets such as the US. For example, this has been the case with Georgian stock trading guide, which mostly base their examples and teachings through companies like Google, Amazon and Apple, all US-based companies.

Regardless though, let’s take a look at some of the figures and try to showcase the level at which these countries trade on a daily, weekly and monthly basis.

The United States of America

The United States stock exchange was first established in 1796, and ever since then, people have been gaining and losing money on the trading floor.

The sheer number of companies that have started failed and succeeded in the US cannot be counted at this point. Well, it can be counted, but very few are willing to do it. The most important thing to consider with the US is the growth of trading volume ever since the digital economy started to pick up the pace.

Foreigners with foreign citizenships were able to invest in US companies without even stepping a foot on US soil, which drove up the markets quite a lot. Even today, the United States stock exchange is the largest by trading volume in the world. The most recent study determined that it was around $41 trillion worth in 2015 alone, which, mind you, was just 7 years after the global recession of 2008.

China

China is next on the list thanks to its massive growth over just two decades of work. The country is basically referred to as the world’s factory as it’s becoming extra hard to not see the “Made in China” label on most of the consumer goods and tech products.

Thanks to this major breakthrough in manufacturing and technology, nearly every manufacturing company and tech company in China sky-rocketed in terms of profitability, which directly correlated with their stock prices.

The craze was so big that Chinese traders were placing 1:100 leverage on their trades, which is virtually unheard of in places like the US and EU. Because of this, the Chinese government was forced to dish out warnings to the investors, to somehow garner risk management. But the number of money people were making due to the economy could not be ignored.

According to recent studies, the Chinese stock market is currently worth around $39 billion, which is just a few billion away from overtaking the United States.

This is a major breakthrough, as not only is China on its way to become the wealthiest country in the world, but also the largest in terms of stock trading.

Japan

Many readers would be expecting to see countries like Hong Kong or the United Kingdom in third place, but let’s not forget where nearly all of the technology, household tech and cars you’re buying come from.

Japan has some of the largest companies in terms of value in the world. Companies like Toyota, Nintendo and etc are way up there in the top next to large corporations like Apple, Tencent and etc.

Furthermore, Japan is also at the forefront of Finances and tech adoption, therefore, most of the jobs that are available there, tend to pay quite a decent amount, allowing the average citizens lots of savings they can potentially invest in the stock market.

Unfortunately though, the Japanese stock exchange is much much lower in terms of trading volume compared to the US and China but still manages to cling to the third place. As of the 2005 research paper, Japan’s stock exchange has been evaluated at $5.5 trillion in total.