The Global Buffett Indicator
The "Buffett Indicator" is a widely respected valuation metric famously endorsed by Warren Buffett, who once called it "probably the best single measure of where valuations stand at any given moment."
The metric is calculated by taking the Total Market Capitalization of a country's stock market and dividing it by the country's Gross Domestic Product (GDP). It essentially measures the size of the financial markets against the size of the underlying real economy. When the ratio is historically high, the stock market is considered overvalued. When it is low, the market is viewed as undervalued.
How We Plot It
At RatioPlotter.eu, our data engine seamlessly combines highly volatile daily stock market data from Yahoo Finance with smooth, annualized macroeconomic GDP data published by the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
To view the Buffett Indicator for various global economies, click on any of the country cards below. This will load our main Ratio Plotter with the IMF GDP tracker in the denominator and the corresponding country ETF in the numerator. We use these ETF's as a proxy for each nation's total equity market, while this is a common industry standard for real-time tracking, we believe in being fully transparent about our data sources and thus you should know this ETF is incomplete and can give a slightly twisted picture of the actual buffet indicator.
If you want to create a custom Buffett Indicator for a country not listed below, you must ensure that the ETF or Index you place in the numerator is priced in US Dollars (USD).
Our backend dynamically fetches the IMF Nominal GDP database (using the
IMF-NGDPD-[Code] ticker syntax), which is strictly denominated in USD. If you divide an asset priced in a local currency (e.g., Euros or Yen) by a GDP metric priced in USD, the resulting chart will be mathematically invalid due to extreme exchange rate distortions.
Live Global Indicators
Click any country below to automatically generate its historical Buffett Indicator chart. (Using US-listed iShares MSCI ETFs as broad market proxies).