Foreign investors hold more than every second share

Dusseldorf Top German corporations such as Adidas, Mercedes-Benz and Siemens are mostly in foreign hands. In the entire leading index Dax, at least 53 percent of all shares were owned by foreign investors in 2021, according to an analysis by the auditing company EY.

The proportion is possibly even significantly higher, because German investors can be clearly assigned just under 30 percent of the stock portfolio. The German share fell by 0.6 percentage points compared to the previous year. The proportion of North American investors, on the other hand, rose by 1.1 percentage points to 22.7 percent.

The strong weight of foreign investors is a possible explanation for a statistical anomaly in the Dax: In the past 30 years, all of the index’s gains were made after the stock market closed or before the start of trading the following day – i.e. during trading hours in the USA and Asia.