Of the roughly 200 nations (both official and partially recognized) in the world, 40 of these countries have no stock exchanges. As frontier market investors with a focus on public equities, keeping an eye out on which countries are about to launch new stock exchanges is important as they usually represent promising investment opportunities. This is because stock exchanges require a great deal of capital, expertise, controls, and economic growth in order to survive, and a stock market launch is a promising sign that early economic challenges have been overcome. We could not find a definitive list of countries with no stock exchanges online, so we have compiled our own.
Here is a list of countries without stock exchanges (population over 1 million):
| Country Name | Region | GDP/Capita | Population |
|---|
| Angola | Sub-Saharan Africa | $ 6,247 | 19,183,590 |
| Burma | Asia-Pacific | $ 1,740 | 60,380,000 |
| Cuba | Caribbean | $ 9,900 | 11,167,325 |
| Democratic Republic of Congo | Sub-Saharan Africa | $ 1,287 | 69,360,000 |
| Eritrea | Sub-Saharan Africa | $ 707 | 6,536,000 |
| Ethiopia | Sub-Saharan Africa | $ 1,366 | 87,952,991 |
| Gambia | Sub-Saharan Africa | $ 1,962 | 1,882,450 |
| Guinea | Sub-Saharan Africa | $ 1,125 | 10,628,972 |
| Kosovo | South Europe | $ 7,766 | 1,815,606 |
| Lesotho | Sub-Saharan Africa | $ 2,255 | 2,098,000 |
| Liberia | Sub-Saharan Africa | $ 703 | 4,397,000 |
| Madagascar | Sub-Saharan Africa | $ 970 | 21,263,403 |
| Mauritania | Sub-Saharan Africa | $ 2,218 | 3,461,041 |
| North Korea | Asia-Pacific | $ 1,800 | 25,027,000 |
| Somalia | Sub-Saharan Africa | $ 600 | 10,806,000 |
| South Sudan | Sub-Saharan Africa | $ 1,350 | 11,739,000 |
| Tajikistan | Central Asia | $ 2,354 | 8,160,000 |
| Timor-Leste | Asia-Pacific | $ 2,242 | 1,212,107 |
| Turkmenistan | Central Asia | $ 9,510 | 5,307,000 |
| Yemen | Middle East / North Africa | $ 2,316 | 25,235,000 |
