pfp Advisory: "Let’s start the EKF-Rally!"

The Eigenkapitalforum traditionally marks the start of a strong phase on the stock market. Christoph Frank from pfp Advisory explains why the last few weeks of the year are often lucrative.
 

24 November, 2025. FRANKFURT (pfp Advisory). Today, Monday, the Equity Capital Forum, often referred to as “EKF,” begins at Frankfurt Airport. Of course, pfp Advisory will be there. My pfp colleague and I will not be able to speak with representatives of all 250 participating corporations, but we don't need to. We have always focused on those stock corporations that are of particular importance to our funds. Between meetings and at evening events, we gauge the mood, meet with other investors, or simply take a few minutes to catch our breath. I have been running into some of the participants there regularly for two decades, whether earlier in the halls of the Frankfurt Trade Fair or, as has been the case for some time now, “outside” at the airport. Either way, this industry gathering has long been the last major highlight of the conference year for me.

The last major highlight – does that also apply to returns? Not at all. The Equity Capital Forum traditionally marks the beginning of an unusually lucrative phase on the German stock market. This most likely has nothing to do with the Equity Capital Forum itself. Sorry, Deutsche Börse. The phenomenon of stock markets tending to perform very well in the last five to eight weeks of the year can be observed not only in Germany, but worldwide. After all, this “EKF rally” coincides with such common phenomena as the “year-end rally” or the “Christmas rally.”

What exactly do I mean by “EKF rally”? According to my calculations, anyone who bought the DAX on the Friday evening before the EKF and sold it again at the end of the year would have achieved an average (geometric) return of 1.7% over the past 20 years. That is far more than in a typical period of around five to eight weeks. In other words, it would result in an annualized average return of approximately 15%, significantly more than the typical DAX return in a calendar year. So anyone thinking of timing the stock market should not leave it or even short it during this phase. 

Of course, these are average values that say little about individual cases. Over the past 20 years, there have been outliers both above and below. In 2012, for example, when the EKF was still held in the Frankfurt exhibition halls, and quite early on from November 12, the return during these seven weeks was a whopping 6.2%. There was even more to be gained in 2016, starting on November 21, when the EKF was already being held at the airport but still in a different hotel: 7.7%. 
However, the highest return was in 2009 with a return of 8.6% – more like an annual return on the stock market than an eight-week return (from November 9). Unfortunately, the 2009 EKF also provided a moment of shock that I still remember 16 years later: On the second evening of the forum, I returned to the exhibition hall from a late meeting with a company executive and noticed the sudden change in mood. A colleague pointed wordlessly to one of the large TV monitors, where breaking news about the suicide of the then national goalkeeper Robert Enke was flickering. Joy and sorrow are sometimes close together in everyday life, even during the Equity Forum. 
In terms of attractive returns, 2013 was also positive with a yield of 5.2%, as were the two most recent year-end periods with 4.5% (2023) and 3.0% (2024). In 2020, when the forum was held virtually rather than as a face-to-face event due to the COVID-19 pandemic, a respectable 4.9% was also achieved. 

Only in 6 of the past 20 years, i.e. with a frequency of just 30%, did the phase following the EKF result in losses. The most painful period was undoubtedly the final phase of 2018, which I still remember vividly. Instead of an EKF rally, heated discussions about US interest rate hikes led to a year-end crash with a low (and at the same time a turning point) directly after Christmas, which caused investors to suffer losses of 5.7%. However, it is also true that prices had already started to slide in the months leading up to the Equity Capital Forum and sentiment was correspondingly poor. The situation was similar in 2022 (-4.3%), which was also a challenging year for equities, with a particularly late EKF (only starting on November 28). 
It is not really surprising that it also made it onto the losers' podium in 2008 with -4.3%, given that Lehman Brothers collapsed just a few weeks before the forum in this year of the financial crisis. On the other hand, I was delighted to see long queues forming in front of the large WMF coffee machines on the ground floor during the event. The demand for coffee from these important WMF products was therefore huge, at least among capital market professionals – excellent for our flagship fund, which at the time held a large position in WMF preferred shares. One last personal note: The two years, 2014 and 2019, when I left the evening event on the second day relatively early because I preferred to watch “my” FC Bayern's Champions League games, were unremarkable in terms of the EKF rally, with only small gains. In 2025, I won't have to rethink my behavior, as FCB won't be playing until the third day of the forum, so there won't be any scheduling conflicts. 

And in 2025? We will know in about five weeks. It is encouraging that in years when the DAX was strong up to the EKF, it usually remained strong afterwards. But this finding is of course no guarantee of an “EKF rally in 2025” – there are no guarantees on the stock market in general. On the other hand, I am quite sure, based on my experience over the past 20 years, that there will be interesting encounters at the 2025 Equity Forum.