Based in the heart of the European Union’s financial sector, the Frankfurt Stock Exchange is the largest of seven stock exchanges in Germany and among the most important worldwide. With a market capitalization of 2.2 billion U.S. dollars as of March 2023, the Frankfurt Stock Exchange was the third largest in Europe after the Euronext and the London Stock Exchange. Among the listed companies, the global multinational software company SAP was the largest on the exchange, with a market capitalization of over 150 billion U.S. dollars, followed by Siemens and Deutsche Telekom.
IPOs on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange
The Frankfurt Stock Exchange is an attractive location for both domestic and foreign companies looking to go public through an Initial Public Offering (IPO) and has become among the preferred stock exchanges for companies’ IPOs in Europe. As of the end of 2022, nearly 500 companies were listed on the FSE, approximately ten percent of which are headquartered abroad. The largest IPO on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange in 2022 was Porsche’s – worth over nine billion U.S. dollars. Porsche’s IPO was not only the largest on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange but also the largest in Europe and the second-largest worldwide, behind South Korean LG Energy Solution’s IPO, which was worth nearly 11 billion U.S. dollars.
Main stock market indices in Germany
Stock market indices help measure the performance of stock markets and are calculated based on the prices of the companies or products included in them. A point in time is assigned a starting value, with developments and performances then measured relative to this value. For instance, indices with a starting point set in January 2020 can present the dramatic effect of the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak on stock markets worldwide. Introduced in 1988, the DAX (Deutscher Aktienindex) is the most important index in Germany and tracks the performance of the 30 largest companies on the exchange. Long considered the benchmark for stock trading in Germany, throughout the years the DAX was flanked by additional indices focused on specific sectors of the economy. The TECDax, for instance, was introduced in 2023 to track the development of the technology sector in the country.
