The Helsinki Stock Exchange would like the return of major investors

The last year of the Helsinki Stock Exchange did not go as expected. The idea was that the stock market would pick up as interest rates fell.

By the summer, the general index had time to rise, but towards autumn it slowed down again. In the end, the exchange rates remained five percent lower than at the beginning of the year.

The 13.6 billion euro dividend pot paid last year smoothed the situation, although the record levels of the previous two years, around 14.5 billion euro, were not reached.

Looking at total income, last year we reached almost zero. The yield index, which takes dividends into account, ended 0.1 percent down.

The development can be compared to, for example, Germany, where, despite bad economic news, the DAX index rose by more than 20 percent last year.

Last year was the third negative year in a row in Helsinki. In 2023, the yield index decreased by 0.6 percent. After the start of the Russian war of aggression in 2022, it came down to 12.7 percent.

Prior to this, the corona years, tinged with negative interest rates and hard recovery, were profitable. In 2021, the return was more than 25 percent, and in the year before that, more than 15 percent.

The past few years of the Helsinki stock exchange are by no means the worst in history. For example, in the euro crisis in 2011, almost a quarter of the yield index was wiped out.

During the financial crisis, the drop approached 50 percent. After the bursting of the IT-bubble, the return remained in the freezing cold for twenty percent in three years. After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the decline accumulated by more than 20 percent.

The last few years could rather be described as a slow decline. Share trading has clearly dried up. The share turnover of the main market fell further by more than seven percent compared to the previous year and was a generous 105 billion euros.

For example, compared to 2020, more than 50 billion euros have disappeared from the annual turnover, and compared to the previous so-called normal year 2019, more than 28.5 billion. In practice, it is about large investors.

You can find many explanations. Higher interest rates and geopolitical tensions have an impact. Capitals are the first to flee from small marginal markets when there is uncertainty.

Many large companies on the Helsinki Stock Exchange, such as With liquid and the most important sectors such as the forest industry have fared poorly.

The United States has dominated in recent years with the help of its artificial intelligence companies. Capitals have piled up heavily on a few winners. The Helsinki Stock Exchange has been left completely aside in the development.

Recently, several well-known investors have said that they see potential in Helsinki.

If you are looking for the positive, the return expectation is good. With the forecasts for 2025, the median of the stock exchange’s p/e numbers is 13.8. If the exchange volumes were to return to even close to normal levels, it would certainly bring a lift to the exchange rates as well.

We are also allowed to wait for a juicy dividend spring. Danish Bank including the dividend pot expected to be 12.5 billion euros. (KL 6.1.)