There is one European market that has recovered almost all of its losses in 2020 thanks to shares in healthcare companies, and it’s not Switzerland.

The Danish OMX Copenhagen 25 Index was just 2% of positive territory return this year at the end of last week. The reason? Almost half of the benchmark’s weight comes from stocks of pharmaceutical companies that have proven more resilient than most in the global economy, devastated by the effects of the coronavirus. Green stocks also supported the index.

This puts the Danish benchmark well ahead of other European countries. Today, it is at the level of 1,172.99 points, reporting a decrease of 0.13%.

The second among the best performing indices on the Old Continent is the Swiss Market Index, which is down more than 9% YoY. The wider Stoxx Europe 600 also remains well below levels since the beginning of the year, despite a rebound from the bottom in March. The narrower OMX Copenhagen 20 Index, in which Novo Nordisk weighs 40%, is now up 3.4% over the period.

Denmark has opened primary schools and allowed some small companies to resume their work, saying the early restrictive measures helped curb the spread of the coronavirus, although other countries such as Britain, Spain, and Italy extended the restrictions. This week, the country announced it will significantly increase the number of daily tests for the infected, part of which will be based on a new program funded in part by the Novo Nordisk Foundation.

“The success is due largely to health and green stocks, not to the fact that Denmark is great”, said analysis of Saxo Bank.

The coronavirus pandemic has imposed widespread blockades that have closed most stores and companies and restricted travel and transportation so that shares of healthcare companies perform better than all other industries in Europe this year.

The main index in Denmark also takes advantage of the names in green energy. The profit of Orsted is immune to the COVID-19 crisis compared to most other European electricity companies.

But the demand for defensive sectors has made Danish stocks too expensive for some. The benchmark is two standard deviations above its historical average over the MSCI World Index, notes Matthias Sundling, senior strategist at Danske Bank.

“We think the region is too expensive. We expect unchanged returns over the next 12 months in the Danish indices, so this is a region that we do not currently value highly”, adds Saxo Bank.