A Chart of the Value of the World’s Banks

Posted by | January 21, 2009 | Uncategorized | 3 Comments

banks

Click for larger view.

Nothing sums up what has happened better than this. Given the bailouts, its fair to say that in 2008 the majority of the worlds best known banks were bankrupted.

Via FT Alphaville.

3 Comments

  • […] Thank you David Galbraith for a pointer to this chart. Watching Babylon Burn has been a really good way to think about all this.  Don’t they all just deserve this? […]

  • This graphic is very misleading.

    The numbers above and below the circles obviously represent the diameters, but the eye naturally compares the areas.

    The ratio between the diameters is x/y while the ratio between the areas is pi(1/2x)^2 / pi(1/2y)^2.

    The ratio between these two shows that the graphic exaggerates the market value of 2007 to 2008 by x/y.

  • admin says:

    Thanks Jeff – I should have spotted that, its a classic piece of not to show a chart.