A country can hold a large stock of portfolio equity and investment-fund-share assets even when its annual economy is much smaller. The World Bank indicator GFDD.DM.09 makes that comparison explicit by expressing those assets relative to gross domestic product. Across the 138 latest available observations, the median is 3.43% of GDP. The distribution is extremely uneven: 50 economies are below 1%, 21 are at 50% or more, and 10 exceed 100% of GDP.
The official indicator name is Gross Portfolio Equity & Investment Fund Shares Assets / GDP. It covers portfolio equity-type assets such as shares, stocks, participation and investment-fund shares, scaled by GDP. It is not a measure of domestic stock-market capitalization, annual equity purchases, or foreign equity inflows. The numerator is an asset position while GDP is an annual flow, so values above 100% are conceptually possible and should not be treated as errors.
Table of Contents
What the world map shows
The clearest spatial concentration appears in parts of Northern and Western Europe, alongside a few major international financial centers and large advanced economies. The Netherlands records 137.17% in 2020, Switzerland 126.17%, Sweden 121.76%, Denmark 119.46% and Finland 103.87%. Canada is also above 100% at 106.60%, while the United States is 50.32%. Many economies in Africa, Central and South Asia, and Latin America sit below 1% or in the single digits.
Asia is highly heterogeneous rather than uniformly high or low. Singapore reaches 249.30% in 2020 and Hong Kong SAR, China records 275.75% in 2018, but Japan is 41.20%, Malaysia 30.99% and Thailand 10.73%. This range is a reminder that continent-level averages can hide very different international portfolio positions and financial structures.
Africa also contains important exceptions to the broad low-value pattern. South Africa is 50.26% in 2020, Botswana 32.02%, Namibia 31.16% and Seychelles 70.90%. Liberia is 98.05%, but that observation is from 2016. The map is therefore best used to identify broad geographic patterns; precise comparisons should always be read together with each economy’s observation year.
Which economies have the highest values?
The four largest observations are Ireland at 292.89%, Hong Kong SAR, China at 275.75%, Singapore at 249.30% and Norway at 234.07%. Their observation years are not the same: 2012, 2018, 2020 and 2019 respectively. The next six are the Netherlands, Switzerland, Sweden, Denmark, Canada and Finland, all with 2020 data. The ordering is informative about scale, but it is not a synchronized 2020 league table.
Values above 200% are easier to understand once the stock-flow distinction is clear. A portfolio equity asset position is accumulated at a point in time, whereas GDP measures value added produced over a year. An economy can therefore have a cross-border portfolio equity asset stock equal to two or three years of GDP. International financial centers, large institutional portfolios and globally diversified investors may be associated with high ratios, but this single indicator does not isolate the causal contribution of any one factor.
| Rank | Economy | Observation year | Share of GDP |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Ireland | 2012 | 292.89% |
| 2 | Hong Kong SAR, China | 2018 | 275.75% |
| 3 | Singapore | 2020 | 249.30% |
| 4 | Norway | 2019 | 234.07% |
| 5 | Netherlands | 2020 | 137.17% |
| 6 | Switzerland | 2020 | 126.17% |
| 7 | Sweden | 2020 | 121.76% |
| 8 | Denmark | 2020 | 119.46% |
| 9 | Canada | 2020 | 106.60% |
| 10 | Finland | 2020 | 103.87% |
Why the median is 3.43% but the mean is 25.42%
The median across all 138 observations is 3.43%, while the arithmetic mean is 25.42%. That gap is created by a relatively small number of very large ratios. The middle half of the distribution lies between 0.15% and 30.48%. For a reader trying to understand the position of a typical economy, the median is therefore more representative than the mean.
The category counts show the same shape. Thirty economies are below 0.1%, 20 are between 0.1% and 0.99%, and 38 are between 1% and 9.99%. Another 29 fall between 10% and 49.99%, 11 between 50% and 99.99%, and 10 at 100% or more. In other words, most observations are low to moderate, while a small upper tail extends above 200%.
Very small values are not the same as zero
At the bottom of the table, the values can be tiny. Sierra Leone is about 0.000000478% in 2014, Guinea 0.000068% in 2018, and the Kyrgyz Republic 0.000201% in 2016. Venezuela, RB and Malawi are also around one-thousandth of one percent. Rounding all of these to 0.0% would erase a real distinction between a measured positive value and a missing or zero observation, so the table keeps additional decimal places for ratios below 0.1%.
A very low value only says that the recorded portfolio equity and investment-fund-share asset position is small relative to GDP. It does not prove that the economy has no stock market, that residents own no equities, or that its overall financial system is undeveloped. Domestic equity holdings, direct investment, debt securities, deposits, pension assets and other financial claims are different concepts and may be large even when GFDD.DM.09 is small.
| Rank | Economy | Observation year | Share of GDP |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Sierra Leone | 2014 | 0.0000% |
| 2 | Guinea | 2018 | 0.0001% |
| 3 | Kyrgyz Republic | 2016 | 0.0002% |
| 4 | Venezuela, RB | 2016 | 0.0009% |
| 5 | Malawi | 2015 | 0.0018% |
| 6 | Ghana | 2020 | 0.0020% |
| 7 | Guyana | 2018 | 0.0020% |
| 8 | Bangladesh | 2020 | 0.0024% |
| 9 | Nepal | 2012 | 0.0031% |
| 10 | Dominican Republic | 2020 | 0.0031% |
Why this should not be labeled a 2020 ranking of 138 economies
Of the 138 observations, 108—about 78.3%—are from 2020. The remaining 30 are the latest non-empty values available for those economies from earlier years between 1999 and 2019. The full year distribution is 2020: 108, 2019: 9, 2018: 7, 2017: 1, 2016: 3, 2015: 1, 2014: 2, 2013: 1, 2012: 2, 2010: 1, 2008: 1, 2007: 1, 1999: 1. Calling the table a “2020 ranking of 138 economies” would hide that difference. A more accurate description is latest available observations through 2020.
The year mismatch matters most near the top. Ireland’s 292.89% is from 2012, Liberia’s 98.05% from 2016, Hong Kong SAR, China’s 275.75% from 2018 and Norway’s 234.07% from 2019. By contrast, many of the Netherlands-through-Finland observations are from 2020. A same-year comparison should filter to 2020 rows or use another year with common coverage rather than treating the latest-value table as simultaneous.
What this ratio can and cannot tell you
The ratio is useful for comparing the scale of portfolio equity-type assets with the size of each economy. A very large economy may hold a large absolute asset stock but still have a moderate ratio because its GDP denominator is large. A smaller economy can post a high ratio when its international portfolio position is large relative to domestic production. Scaling by GDP therefore makes cross-country magnitude comparisons easier than looking at asset dollars alone.
The indicator does not provide investment returns, risk, expected stock performance, the direction of capital flows, domestic household wealth allocation, or stock-market capitalization. Nor does it create a universal “higher is better” scale. A high ratio can indicate a large external portfolio asset position, but the single series does not reveal who owns the assets, where they are invested, the currency composition, or how much of the level reflects market-price changes.
It is also important not to read the ratio as a budget share. The numerator is a financial-asset stock and the denominator is an annual GDP flow. These are different economic dimensions combined for scale comparison. The ratio therefore does not need to add up to 100% with other items, and a value above 100% is not intrinsically abnormal.
Source and calculation method
The definition follows the World Bank Global Financial Development metadata for GFDD.DM.09. The World Bank describes the series as gross portfolio equity and investment-fund-share assets relative to GDP and identifies the IMF International Financial Statistics as the underlying source. Economy-level observations are available from the World Bank indicator page.
This analysis uses the latest non-empty observation for each of 138 economies, then calculates the median, mean, quartiles, range counts and rankings directly from those values. Missing data were not replaced with zero. The world map joins ISO country codes to a low-resolution Natural Earth boundary file; 120/138 data economies match visible polygons. Some very small islands and territories therefore appear in the tables and charts but not on the map.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can gross portfolio equity assets exceed 100% of GDP?
Yes. The asset measure is a stock at a point in time, while GDP is a one-year flow. A financial asset position can therefore be larger than annual GDP without implying a calculation error.
Does a higher ratio mean an economy is a better place to invest?
No. The indicator measures the scale of portfolio equity and investment-fund-share assets relative to GDP. It does not measure expected returns, investment risk or market attractiveness.
Are all 138 observations from 2020?
No. 108 observations are from 2020 and the rest are earlier latest-available values. The full dataset should be read as latest available observations through 2020.
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