Financial assets hit $140 trillion in 2005 - WSJ

Date: Wednesday, January 10, 2007
Author: Reuters.com

NEW YORK, Jan 10 (Reuters) - The world's financial system was awash with $140 trillion worth of stocks, bonds and other assets as of 2005, according to a study by McKinsey & Co., the Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday.

The study, which McKinsey released on Wednesday, tries to track the flows of the world's financial assets as they move from one region to another, the Journal reported.

The figure is more than three times as large as the total output of goods and services produced across the planet that year, the paper said.

Flows of investment across borders hit $6 trillion in 2005, McKinsey said, above levels reached at the height of the 1990s stock-market bubble and more than double the figure in 2002, the paper also said.

The United States is at the epicenter, taking in about 85 percent of the flows from countries that are net exporters of capital, it also said.

Global financial flows are likely to accelerate in the coming years, the paper reported. It said stocks were the main driver of growth in global financial assets in 2005, with improved earnings as the main catalyst.

The study also found that one in five stocks world-wide is owned by someone who lives outside the country where the stock was issued, the Journal said.

McKinsey was not immediately able to provide Reuters with a copy of the report.