German stock market

As a major economic power and a European nation, the German stock exchange is powerful and is a major economic force. Along with the LSE London Stock Exchange and the exchange in France, it is among the biggest exchanges in Europe. Hundreds and thousands of investors make a living by investing their money from these exchanges. Here are the major exchanges in Germany.

• Berlin Stock Exchange
• Bremen Stock Exchange
• Commodity Exchange Hanover
• Düsseldorf Exchange
• EUREX
• Hamburg Exchange
• Munich Stock Exchange
• Stuttgart Exchange
• DAX

DAX, which was introduced in 1988, was conceived as the leading German stock index. The German Stock Exchange publishes the XETRA-DAX, which is a calculation based on the early-morning opening and late-afternoon closing of the 30 DAX stocks in the XETRA electronic trading system. The German Stock Exchange index now also comprises of the DAX 100, the midcap index MDAX and the Composite DAX (CDAX), which is again subdivided into 16 branch indexes.

The index of DAX is selected according to the following criteria…

A company needs to be listed for at least 3 years prior to the inclusion of its stock in the DAX.

Free-floating capital must at least reach 15%.

However currently DAX is now down as the prices are falling. Analysts and observers feel that this because of the political uncertainties caused by the election results. In the polls, neither the conservative Christian Democratic Union nor Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's Social Democrats have won enough seats so that they can lead in parliamentary elections to build a stable government.

Conservative leader Angela Merkel had a slight advantage over the Social Democrats, but will not be able to form the center-right coalition that she had wanted to push through labor market and tax reforms aimed at reviving the country's sluggish economy.