Similarly, the commercial centre of India, Mumbai, has the largest exchange in India. Like Hong Kong, the Bombay stock market is broad and deep because of the Indian hinterland. Singapore does not have a hinterland.
Much has been made of the Indian equities market, as measured by the narrowing market capitalisation gap between the BSE (Bombay Stock Exchange) Index and the Hang Seng Index. As at Dec 8, the market cap of Indian equities stood at US$4.24 trillion ($5.69 trillion) versus that of the Hong Kong market at US$4.66 trillion (see Tables 1 and 2). As at Dec 8, the Hang Seng Index is down 18.9% this year, while the BSE is up 14.8% in the same time-frame. In comparison, the Straits Times Index has lost 4.3%.
Based on data from the Singapore Exchange (SGX:S68
) , the market cap of the Singapore market as at end-November was $765 billion. Hence, the Hong Kong market is 9x bigger than Singapore and the Indian market is 8x bigger than Singapore. This is because the Hong Kong market is often viewed as a proxy to the China market.
