News & Research

‘Made for Germany’ initiative from 61 firms, nearly half of which are DAX constituents, was presented to Chancellor Friedrich Merz as means to foster innovation, employment and competitiveness. The announcement comes amid the government’s spending plans to boost economic growth and investors’ mounting interest in German stocks this year.

Exactly a quarter century ago, STOXX, Deutsche Börse and then-manager Merrill Lynch made history in launching Europe’s first ETFs, listed in Frankfurt. The funds were the foundation stone for an industry that today commands EUR 2.2 trillion in assets and has dramatically changed the financial sector.

STOXX Ltd., part of the ISS STOXX GmbH group of companies and a leading provider of benchmark and custom index solutions to global institutional investors, has licensed the STOXX Digital Asset Blue Chip Index to Valour Inc. The index, which marks STOXX’s entry into the digital asset space, will serve as an underlying for an exchange traded product (ETP) listed on Xetra, a leading trading venue for ETFs & ETPs in Europe. The index was developed in partnership with crypto-financial services provider Bitcoin Suisse.

Since 2020, the DAX indices have undergone a sustained evolution to have their rules adjusted and aligned with the needs of modern markets. As of March 2024, the indices’ methodology will change the way they treat corporate actions, while data distribution will move to the reporting system used by STOXX indices. Additionally, the indices’ weight cap for individual constituents will be raised from 10% to 15%.

As part of STOXX’s 25th anniversary celebrations, we caught up with Stephan Leithner, member of the Executive Board and responsible for Pre- & Post-Trading businesses at Deutsche Börse Group; and with Axel Lomholt, General Manager at STOXX. We got their impressions on STOXX’s growth trajectory and asked them what lies ahead for an indexing industry immersed in full transformation.

Investing has transformed radically since STOXX Ltd. was born. After a quarter-century of change, we continue to innovate with a growing family of indexing solutions that are as smart as they are accurate and reliable.

Institutional Shareholder Services (“ISS”), a leading provider of corporate governance and responsible investment solutions, fund intelligence, and events and editorial content for institutional investors and corporations, today announced the completion of its transaction to add Qontigo’s index business under the newly created “ISS STOXX” group of companies. The Qontigo index business will be rebranded “STOXX.”

Thematic indices can offer diversification and market-beating returns, in some cases by using innovative index methodologies, says Christoph Schon at Qontigo.

The ISS STOXX Biodiversity Index Suite, launched this week, aims to take a more holistic approach to biodiversity than existing market offerings, Antonio Celeste, Director for Sustainability Product Management at index, analytics and risk solutions provider Qontigo, told ESG Investor.

Our Sustainable Investments team has produced a document detailing the methodology for reporting the sustainable investment percentage of STOXX and DAX indices. The rules are aligned with the spirit of the EU’s Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (SFDR) and are designed, among other things, to bring specificity and flexibility when constructing sustainable portfolios.

Qontigo has licensed the global STOXX ESG Länder PAB Index family to four German federal states. PAB (Paris-aligned Benchmark) stands for the most ambitious EU regulation regarding fossil exclusion criteria and greenhouse gas decarbonization for index providers.

The last two years have been among the most eventful in the blue-chip DAX® index’s three-decade life. Qontigo, which manages the German benchmark and its entire family of indices, has since 2020 pursued DAX’s biggest overhaul since its inception. The aim has been to bolster the quality of constituent companies, bring selection criteria in line with international standards and improve representativeness.