The index funds on the Dax manage 16 billion euros.
On the S&P 500 it's more than 130 billion euros.
The relation shows that the Dax is a dwarf globally.
It is good that Deutsche Börse is now putting its index reform into action.
In some points even overdue, as the embarrassing farce about the Dax whereabouts of the insolvent Wirecard AG showed, which had owed its balance sheets for months.
The dwarf doesn't suddenly turn into a giant. An index stands and falls with its universe, as financiers like to call it, i.e. the values of which such an index could in principle consist. Nobody came up with the idea of a Dax-500 simply because we in this country would not have got 500 good investable stock corporations together for such an index.
But not only is there a lack of breadth, there is also no Apple, Google or Amazon at the top between Flensburg and Garmisch. Width and point have something to do with one another. Only if it is possible to convince companies across the board of the advantages of the stock exchange and investors find more courage to equip companies in this country with risk capital for investments in research and development will more top companies grow out of this broader stock market. To prepare the ground for this, there is a lot of political trouble, but the stock market itself can do even more.