Volkswagen Excluded from Euro Stoxx 50

The German automotive giant **Volkswagen** has been excluded from the **Euro Stoxx 50** stock index due to the depreciation of its share value, effective from **September 23, 2026**.

The largest car manufacturer in Europe, **Volkswagen**, is no longer part of the **Euro Stoxx 50**, the benchmark index for major companies in the eurozone. The exclusion, confirmed by the index provider **Stoxx** during its annual review in September, took effect at the start of trading on Monday, **September 23, 2026**. In its place entered the Finnish telecommunications group **Nokia** and the French power company **Engie**, while the Dutch group **Wolters Kluwer** also exited the indicator.

## Automatic Exclusion Criterion

The departure of **Volkswagen** from the **Euro Stoxx 50** is not due to a discretionary decision but to an automatic criterion based on market capitalization. The index is weighted according to the share value of floating capital, and **Volkswagen's** declining valuation no longer met the minimum threshold required. This exclusion has important practical consequences, as funds that replicate the index are obliged to sell their positions in the company, exerting additional pressure on an already depreciated value. Last year, **Stellantis** suffered a similar fate.

Volkswagen shares have experienced a drop of almost **30%** since early **2026**, and retreated more than **6%** in the week preceding the exclusion, trading around **76 euros**.

## Profit Warning Coincides with Decline

The timing of the exclusion announcement was particularly unfortunate, as just days before, **Volkswagen** warned about a projected **10 billion euros** in extraordinary charges that would drastically erode its annual profit. The company lowered its operating margin forecast for **2026** to a maximum of **1%**, far below the **4.1%** expected by analysts and the previous range of **4%** to **5.5%**.

More than **6 billion euros** of these charges stem from a depreciation in **Porsche**, in which **Volkswagen** holds a **75.4%** stake, trinc a reduction in medium-term expectations for the sports car manufacturer. **Porsche** has been affected by US tariffs and weak Chinese demand for foreign luxury brands, achieving a margin of **1.1%** last year. Another **2 billion euros** or more are allocated to the expansion of early retirement plans, asset impairments in **China**, and the planned sale of **Volkswagen Osnabrück GmbH**. The company attributed these issues to a “greater deterioration of the market environment, especially in **China**, as well as an accelerated shift in demand towards battery electric vehicles.”

This warning arrived just two weeks after **Volkswagen** approved the biggest restructuring in its history, doubling planned job cuts up to **100,000 positions** and halving its model range. Despite the negative figures, **Volkswagen** maintains its underlying margin at around **4%** if extraordinary items are excluded, and keeps its cash generation and liquidity forecasts unchanged. **Deutsche Bank**, which recommends buying the shares with a target price of **115 euros**, believes that the “headline significantly exaggerates the deterioration of the underlying business,” although it predicts further costs in the coming months due to the complexity of the transformation process. **Volkswagen's** third-quarter results will be published on **October 29, 2026**.