All the world’s money and markets in one visualization
The era of easy money is now officially over.
For 15 years, policymakers have attempted to stimulate the global economy through money creation, zero interest rate policies and, most recently, aggressive fiscal stimulus against COVID.
With capital at near zero costs over this period, investors began to place more value on cash flow in the distant future. Assets swelled and balance sheets widened, and money inevitably drove out more speculative assets like NFTs, crypto, or unproven venture capital-backed startups.
But the free money party has since come to an end, after persistent inflation caused many of those policies to be suddenly reversed. And as Warren Buffett says, it’s only when the tide goes out that you can see “who swam naked”.
Measuring Money and Markets in 2022
Whenever we publish this visualization, our common unit of measurement is a two-dimensional box worth $100 billion.
Even if you need a lot of them to pass the assets of the US Federal Reserve’s balance sheet or the private wealth held by the world’s billionaires, it’s pretty amazing to think what actually corresponds to this little piece of measurement :
Our small unit of measure is enough to pay for the construction of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, while buying all the NHL teams and pulling FTX out of its financial hole several times.
Here’s an overview of all the elements we’ve listed in this year’s visualization:
| Asset class | Assess | Source | Remarks |
|---|---|---|---|
| SBF (maximum net worth) | $26 billion | Bloomberg | Now stands at < $1 billion |
| Professional sports teams | $340 billion | Forbes | Main professional teams in North America |
| Cryptocurrency | $760 billion | CoinMarketCap | Peaked at $2.8 billion in 2021 |
| Ukrainian GDP | $130 billion | world Bank | Comparable to Mississippi’s GDP |
| GDP of Russia | $1.8 trillion | world Bank | The 11th world economy |
| Annual military expenditure | $2.1 trillion | SIPRI | 2021 data |
| Physical currency | $8 trillion | BIS | 2020 data |
| Gold | $11.5 trillion | world gold council | There are 205,238 tons of gold |
| Billionaires | $12.7 trillion | Forbes | Sum of the fortunes of all 2,668 billionaires |
| Central Bank Assets | $28 trillion | Trade economy | Fed, BoJ, Bank of China and Eurozone only |
| S&P500 | $36 trillion | Slickcharts | November 20, 2022 |
| China’s GDP | $17.7 trillion | world Bank | |
| US GDP | $23 trillion | world Bank | |
| Narrow money supply | $49 trillion | Trade economy | Includes USA, China, Eurozone and Japan only |
| Broad money supply | $82.7 trillion | Trade economy | Includes USA, China, Eurozone and Japan only |
| Global Equities | $95.9 trillion | WFE | Latest 2022 data available |
| Global debt | $300.1 trillion | IIR | Q2 2022 |
| Global real estate | $326.5 trillion | Savills | 2020 data |
| Global Private Wealth | $463.6 trillion | Swiss credit | report 2022 |
| Derivatives market) | $12.4 trillion | BIS | |
| Derivatives (Notional) | $600 trillion | BIS |
Has the dust settled yet?
In previous editions of our All world currency and markets visualization, we created snapshots of global assets and markets at different times.
For example, in our 2017 edition of this visualization, Apple’s market cap was just $807 billion and all crypto assets combined were $173 billion. Total global debt stood at $215 trillion.
| Asset | 2017 issue | 2022 edition | To change (%) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Apple market capitalization | $807 billion | $2.3 trillion | +185% |
| Crypto | $173 billion | $760 billion | +339% |
| Fed balance sheet | $4.5 trillion | $8.7 trillion | +93% |
| Stock markets | $73 trillion | $95.9 trillion | +31% |
| Global debt | $215 trillion | 300 trillion dollars | +40% |
And in just five years, Apple nearly quadrupled in size (it peaked at $3 trillion in January 2022), and crypto also expanded into a multi-trillion-dollar market until it be brought back to Earth during the crash of 2022 and the subsequent FTX implosion.
Meanwhile, global debt continues to pile up, increasing by $85 trillion in the five-year period.
With interest rates expected to continue to rise, businesses cutting costs, and policymakers limiting spending and borrowing, today is another unique snapshot in time.
Now that the era of easy money is over, where do things stand?
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