The World Federation of Exchanges ("The WFE"), the global industry group for exchanges and CCPs, published its 2017 Full Year Market Highlights report in last February.
According to the report, 2017 ended on a strong note for stock markets worldwide.
Benchmark market indices soared to record-high levels in markets across the globe, setting the backdrop for market activity in 2017.
Market valuations soared and IPOs rebounded; however, secondary market activity was muted with value and volume of shares traded and investment flows through already-listed companies down on 2016.
Among other key highlights within the report were:
1. The global market capitalisation was up 22.6% on 2016
2. Value of share trading and the number of trades declined by 2.6% and 5.1% as compared to 2016
3. New listings and investment flows through IPOs were up 47.8% and 50.6% respectively on 2016
4. Exchange Traded Derivatives (ETD) volumes ended the year up 0.6% on 2016, driven largely by increases in volumes traded of single stock options, stock index options and interest rate futures.
On top of all points, amongst the key trends of 2017 when compared to 2016 were on the total domestic market capitalisation.
At the end of 2017 was 22.6% higher than as at end 2016, reaching a new record high of $87.1 trillion, an all-time high for the five-year period under review, globally and regionally.
This increase was driven by an uptick in domestic market capitalisation across all regions: the Americas up 17.8%, Asia-Pacific up 27.6%, and EMEA up 24.3% on 2016.
In Southeast Asia specifically, these are the "Equity - Domestic market capitalisation":
Note: The market capitalisation figures include;
(1) shares of listed domestic companies;
(2) shares of foreign companies which are exclusively listed in an exchange, i.e. the foreign company is not listed on any other exchange;
(3) common and preferred shares of domestic companies; and;
(4) shares without voting rights.
This increase in domestic market capitalisation was against a backdrop of a synchronised global recovery in GDP growth rates, the continuation of accommodative monetary policy in many regions, low levels of inflation, low market volatility, recovering commodity prices and strong corporate profits.
