(Bloomberg) — The UK stock market is falling behind Canada in value of listed companies, dealing yet another blow to London’s meandering equity market, which has been eclipsed by ascending exchanges like India in recent years. Market values in Canada have surged 11% so far this year to $3.22 trillion, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
The value of firms on the Toronto Stock Exchange and the broader Canadian equity market is now neck and neck with the UK. The data excludes foreign depositary receipts and exchange-traded funds in both markets. The move took the UK to seventh place on a list of global stock markets by value, behind the US, China, Japan, Hong Kong and India, which surpassed the UK in 2021.
Paris also overtook the London market in 2022, but political turmoil in France allowed the UK to reclaim its spot as the largest equity market in Europe earlier this year. For its part, Canada’s stock market briefly surpassed the UK in September 2022, during the market chaos of former British prime minister Liz Truss’s government, but this time it looks like it could stick. The two have been moving in opposite directions over the past decade, with Canadian exchanges adding $1 trillion in aggregate market capitalization, while the UK lost nearly as much.
Strategists and investors expect capital to flow into Canadian shares over UK stocks in the future. The UK equity market’s lost ground partly stems from its heavy weighting in low-growth industries like consumer.
