The world of listed stock exchanges looks ever dippier. On Friday, Brazil’s stock exchange, Bovespa, rose 52 per cent on its first day of trading. The exchange’s R$32-a-share price on Monday represented almost 50 times forward earnings. The listing follows hard on the heels of CME, the US futures exchange, which agreed to buy 10 per cent of Brazil’s Mercantile & Futures Exchange for R$1.3bn, or over 40 times estimated 2009 earnings.

Even in the bubbly world of exchanges, such valuations look absurd. Brazil’s main stock market index is trading on about 12 times forward earnings. Other listed stock exchanges may be in pretty heady territory – the London Stock Exchange at 25 times 2008 earnings, the Singapore Exchange at 30 times – but only Hong Kong’s is at a similar multiple. Investors may feel like paying over the odds to get exposure to China but whether Brazil’s growth prospects are equally enticing is moot. Trading volumes have soared but the exchange’s market capitalisation of about $13bn represents an abnormally high percentage of the $1,300bn value of companies traded on it. NYSE Euronext has a market capitalisation of $24bn and the value of stocks listed on it is 13 times larger than for Bovespa Holding.