There could not be an S&P 500 stock index in Germany.
Simply because there are no listed companies.
Deutsche Börse currently has 441 companies in its Prime and General Standard segments.
Only a fraction of the approximately 3 million companies in Germany can be invested transparently and liquidly.
The thousands of global market leaders known as hidden champions, whom hardly anyone knows, do not have to publicly report in detail on their activities every quarter, as listed companies have to.
The transparency on the stock exchange is good.
However, most companies shy away from this.
From an investor's point of view, that's a pity, because investors are missing out on the immense return opportunities offered by start-ups and resourceful traditional companies.
It is therefore high time that regulators, banks and stock exchanges try to make companies off the stock market more investable, if at all, for investors.
Deutsche Börse has just announced an initiative in cooperation with the American company Forge.
As is so often the case, America is a few years ahead of us.
Forge has been in the field since 2014.
For investors, the private capital market has the charm of being able to choose from a much greater variety of companies and invest in them at earlier stages of growth.
And the companies tap into a much broader base of financiers.
This is called a win-win situation in modern German.