Mulden.
257 essays 1,087 funds measured independent · not paid by any fund or issuer we cover

Series · Wednesdays and Saturdays · from SEC Form N-PORT

World through ETFs

Every quarter, 962 US-registered funds file what they own, position by position, with the country of each issuer. Pooled by net assets, that is a map of where $16.0 trillion of US-registered fund money sits: 79.44% in US issuers, 20.6% in the rest of the world, as of 2026Q2. This series reads that map one region at a time, keeps every number reproducible from the filings, and comes back each quarter to say what moved.

New episodes Wednesdays and Saturdays, and a quarterly edition when a new round of filings is in · the map itself · latest quarter 2026Q2

Premise, and its limit

Most of this money is in index funds, which do not choose countries; their weights follow market value. So the map of where it sits is largely a map of what the world's listed companies are worth, seen through one particular window — funds registered in the United States, which are the only funds that file Form N-PORT. European and Asian investors' funds are outside the window. Country means the issuer's country of incorporation as filed, which is not always where the business is; the pages mark the codes where that matters. Within those limits every figure is a filed number with a source link, dated by the period it describes and the day the SEC received it, and the definitions are the same ones used across this site.

Nobody knows the future; what history offers is the chance to state an expectation in numbers, wait for the next filing, and be corrected in public. The ledger below is for that.

Season 1 · The map

4

Four episodes that establish the lens: what US-registered index money owns outside the United States, and how that has moved since 2019. 23 September to 3 October.

Ep.TitlePublished
1VXUS holdings by country: 8,824 stocks, 49 countries, and 14 cents of every dollar in Taiwan and Korea2026-09-23
2Emerging markets ETFs by country: Taiwan, Korea, India and China in IEMG, VWO and EEM2026-09-26
3How much of VT is the US? 62 cents of every dollar, up from 52 in 20192026-09-30
4962 funds, $16 trillion, 56 countries: where US fund money actually sits2026-10-03

Season 2 · One country at a time

Japan, China, Taiwan, India, Korea, the United Kingdom, Canada and onward: which funds carry the country, how much money that is, and how the weight has moved. Order set by how much money is there, not by news.

Season 3 · Other windows on the same world

The same questions asked of money that is not American, beginning with the Norwegian sovereign fund's published holdings, which go back to 1998. Each new source is used only once it meets the same standard as the SEC filings: primary, free, machine-readable, redistributable in derived form, and with history.

What moved, 2026Q1 → 2026Q2

Largest changes in pooled share outside the United States between the last two quarters, percentage points. The quarterly episode starts from this table and asks why.

Country2026Q12026Q2Change
South Korea 0.92%1.24% +0.32
Taiwan 1.25%1.48% +0.23
United Kingdom 1.88%1.72% −0.16
Hong Kong SAR China 0.86%0.72% −0.14
India 0.87%0.74% −0.13
Japan 2.85%2.72% −0.13
Canada 1.68%1.56% −0.12
France 1.12%1.01% −0.11

Funds pooled: 951 in 2026Q1, 962 in 2026Q2. Part of any change is the set of funds that had filed by the measurement date, which the quarterly episode separates from price and flow.

Statements on record

When an episode says what the next filings are likely to show, the sentence is kept here with the date it was written and the date it can be checked, and the outcome is added when the filing arrives — right or wrong. The first statements go on record with episode 1.

StatedStatementCheckOutcome
2026-09-23VXUS, period 2026-07-31 (due by end September): Taiwan and Korea together remain above 13 cents of the dollar; the CN/HK split of Chinese issuers may move again.2026-10-01open
2026-09-26IEMG, next filing: Korea stays above 20 cents (it rose from 12 to 22 in one half-year). VWO, next filing: Taiwan passes 30 cents.2026-11-30open

Cite this

Mulden. (2026). World through ETFs (series). Retrieved 2026-09-19 from https://themulden.com/series/world-through-etfs/

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