News & Research

The sector composition of the Eurozone blue-chip benchmark looks very different from its inception 26 years ago. Most recently, two technology stocks – ASML and SAP – have had the biggest influence on the index’s direction, and may be re-positioning it in the eyes of investors.

Five years since the launch of futures on the STOXX Europe 600 ESG-X index, the Eurex-STOXX partnership in ESG derivatives now includes nearly a dozen listed products. Volumes continue to pick up, testimony to increasing investor interest and evolving regulation in the region.

In this paper, we use the transparency afforded by ETFs to analyze investor flows, but also look through to the underlying holdings, to understand the time-varying preferences of passive investors. We have found that year on year, there is a great deal of variability in style, industry and regional exposures. However, these exposure preferences tend to be neutral over longer time frames. This is in contrast to a consistent preference for performance, reflected by flows going towards ETFs with strong in-year returns.

What is the value of diversification? We can visualize it using a simple three-asset portfolio, observing how the risk-adjusted performance changes when varying the correlation. Correlation measures the degree to which two variables move in relation to each other, and serves as a guide as to how well assets can diversify each other.

The DAX 30 ESG index is the latest introduction to a family of German ESG benchmarks. It tracks the country’s large-caps with the highest ESG scores determined by ISS ESG.

STOXX Ltd., part of the ISS STOXX GmbH group of companies and a leading provider of index solutions for institutional investors worldwide, has licensed a new ESG benchmark for the German equity market to DZ BANK. The DAX 30 ESG index expands the options for ESG (Environmental, Social, Governance) investing in German equities and, as of today, forms the basis for several discount certificates that are tradable on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange.

As DWS launched the Xtrackers Biodiversity Focus SRI UCITS ETFs, we sat down with experts from Xtrackers, ISS ESG and STOXX to explore what’s driving investor interest in biodiversity strategies and how they can comprehensively integrate natural-world data and considerations into portfolios.

The STOXX Global 1800 rose 1.3% last month and nearly topped its record high from 2022 when excluding dividends. Technology shares extended their rally, while Momentum-style stocks had their best month on record relative to the benchmark.

A new study from specialists at BlackRock and STOXX explores the potential benefits of low tracking-error, multifactor portfolios. While factor investing has historically been dominated by single-factor strategies with relatively strong tilts, the authors show that diversification across multiple factors with smaller tilts and less tracking error can pay off in the long run.

Stocks extended gains in January, lifting the STOXX® Global 1800 index near an all-time high, as optimism that major central banks will soon start cutting interest rates carried into the new year.

Mid-curve options on dividend futures give market participants a more targeted instrument, with quarterly expirations, to gain exposure on the direction of European dividend payments.

Omar Moufti, Thematics and Sectors Product strategist at BlackRock, says the transition to a low-carbon economy is just one of the forces propelling the copper and lithium industries, and explains why investing in the miners’ stocks may be an attractive long-term proposition for investors.