There is always a huge outcry when the stock markets go downhill. "The markets are crashing" is a phrase that is often used. However, while some shares plummet during a crisis and are unlikely to recover, others have remained surprisingly stable through past crises and recessions. It is interesting to note that these are by no means individual stocks, but can easily be divided by region and sector, even if the two categorizations are closely intertwined. But more on that in a moment.  

Let's first take a look at the regions. If you take a look at the crises of recent years, such as the dotcom crisis or the euro crisis, you will quickly discover that there was one big loser among the regions: Germany. Shares from Germany did not perform well during the collapse of the "Neuer Markt", the financial crisis or the euro crisis. In the current coronavirus crisis and the Ukraine crisis, Germany is also bringing up the rear among the major indices because the supply chain problems have hit the export-heavy economy particularly hard, causing share prices to plummet. The exact opposite: the USA. Shares from the United States have posted the best results in the past five crises.

The keyword USA brings us directly to the sectors. The fact that share prices from the United States have proven so successful in crises is of course also due to the sector composition. IT shares as well as those from the healthcare sector and basic consumer goods (e.g. Procter & Gamble) have been particularly crisis-proof. As these shares have a much higher weighting in the US indices than in Germany, this also explains the different performance of the regions. USA: 1. Germany: 0.

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