investing Investment is the dedication of money to purchase of an asset to attain an increase in value over a period of time. Investment requires a sacrifice of some present asset, such as time, money, or effort. In finance, the purpose of investing i ...

, a developed market is a country that is most developed in terms of its economy and capital markets. The country must be high income, but this also includes openness to foreign ownership, ease of capital movement, and efficiency of market institutions. This term is contrasted with

developing market A developing country is a sovereign state with a lesser developed industrial base and a lower Human Development Index (HDI) relative to other countries. However, this definition is not universally agreed upon. There is also no clear agreeme ...

(

emerging markets An emerging market (or an emerging country or an emerging economy) is a market that has some characteristics of a developed market, but does not fully meet its standards. This includes markets that may become developed markets in the future or were ...

and

frontier markets A frontier market is a term for a type of developing country's market economy which is more developed than a least developed country's, but too small, risky, or illiquid to be generally classified as an emerging market economy. The term is an ec ...

are types of developing markets).

FTSE Group list

FTSE Group FTSE International Limited trading as FTSE Russell ( "Footsie") is a British provider of stock market indices and associated data services, wholly owned by the London Stock Exchange (LSE) and operating from premises in Canary Wharf. It operates ...

, a provider of economic and financial data, assigns the market status of countries as Developed, Advanced Emerging, Secondary Emerging or Frontier on the basis of their economic size, wealth, quality of markets, depth of markets, breadth of markets. From 26 September 2019, FTSE Group classifies 26 countries as developed markets:

FTSE criteria

Developed countries all have met criteria under the following categories: # They are high income economies (as measured by the World Bank GNI per capita Rating, Market and Regulatory Environment) ## Formal stock market regulatory authorities actively monitor market (e.g., SEC, FSA, SFC) ## Fair and non-prejudicial treatment of minority shareholders ## Non or selective incidence of foreign ownership restrictions ## No objections or significant restrictions or penalties applied on the repatriation of capital ## Free and well-developed equity market ## Free and well-developed foreign exchange market ## Non or simple registration process for foreign investors # Custody and Settlement ## Settlement – Rare incidence of failed trades ## Custody-Sufficient competition to ensure high quality custodian services ## Clearing & settlement – T +3 or shorter, T+7 or shorter for Frontier ## Stock Lending is permitted ## Settlement – Free delivery available ## Custody – Omnibus account facilities available to international investors # Dealing Landscape ## Brokerage – Sufficient competition to ensure high quality broker services ## Liquidity – Sufficient broad market liquidity to support sizeable global investment ## Transaction costs – implicit and explicit costs to be reasonable and competitive ## Short sales permitted ## Off-exchange transactions permitted ## Efficient trading mechanism ## Transparency –

market depth In finance, market depth is a real-time list displaying the quantity to be sold versus unit price. The list is organized by price level and is reflective of real-time market activity. Mathematically, it is the size of an order needed to move th ...

information / visibility and timely trade reporting process # Derivatives ## Developed derivatives markets # Size of Market ## Market Capitalisation ## Total Number of Listed Companies (as of 31 December 2008)

MSCI list

As of June 2019,

MSCI MSCI Inc. is an American finance company headquartered in New York City. MSCI is a global provider of equity, fixed income, real estate indexes, multi-asset portfolio analysis tools, ESG and climate products. It operates the MSCI World, MSCI ...

classified the following 25 countries as developed markets: According to ''MSCI Global investable Market Indexes Methodology – November 2019'',

Cyprus Cyprus ; tr, Kıbrıs (), officially the Republic of Cyprus,, , lit: Republic of Cyprus is an island country located south of the Anatolian Peninsula in the eastern Mediterranean Sea. Its continental position is disputed; while it is geo ...

and

Luxembourg Luxembourg ( ; lb, Lëtzebuerg ; french: link=no, Luxembourg; german: link=no, Luxemburg), officially the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, ; french: link=no, Grand-Duché de Luxembourg ; german: link=no, Großherzogtum Luxemburg is a small lan ...

"are part of the developed market universe", but "given their modest size, these markets are not included in the

MSCI World The MSCI World is a market cap weighted stock market index of 1,546 companies throughout the world. It is maintained by MSCI, formerly Morgan Stanley Capital International, and is used as a common benchmark for 'world' or 'global' stock funds in ...

index".

S&P list

As of 24 June 2019,

Standard and Poor's S&P Global Ratings (previously Standard & Poor's and informally known as S&P) is an American credit rating agency (CRA) and a division of S&P Global that publishes financial research and analysis on stocks, bonds, and commodities. S&P is consi ...

classifies the following 25 countries as developed markets:

STOXX list

As of 23 September 2019, STOXX classifies the following 25 countries as developed markets:

Table

References

{{Reflist Economic country classifications International development Investment