ETFs: “Busy trading, but no need to panic”
The escalation in the Middle East is triggering a wave of selling on the stock market. However, traders are not reporting any panic in ETF trading. They are seeing both buying and selling. Oil and gas price trackers are clearly on the shopping list.
March 3, 2026. FRANKFURT (Deutsche Börse). The stock market slump continues on Tuesday morning. Fears of an energy crisis have pushed the DAX below the 24,000-point mark. ETF trading is also very busy. “There is a lot of excitement,” reports Ivo Orlemann of ICF Bank. Oil and gas ETCs in particular are being traded extremely heavily, including with leverage. “Overall, however, we do not see any selling pressure.” According to Janis Völker of Lang & Schwarz, there is no “panic mood” either. “Customers are reacting very differently, with flows going in both directions.”
The price of Brent crude oil (XC0009677409) has climbed above $82 due to the US and Israeli attack on Iran. The price of European natural gas has even reached its highest level in over three years due to the supply stoppage from Qatar. One focus at ICF is now the WisdomTree WTI Crude Oil 3x Daily Leveraged (<IE00BMTM6B3>), whose price has risen sharply. Orlemann also sees “large orders” in its natural gas counterpart, the WisdomTree Natural Gas 3x Daily Leveraged (XS2819843900). Classic price trackers such as the WisdomTree Brent Crude Oil ETC (JE00B78CGV99) are also popular. Lang & Schwarz is also seeing a lot of activity, especially in oil and gas ETCs, often those with leverage.
According to Orlemann, however, gold and silver price ETCs are much quieter. “But sales are still high,” he adds, referring to the Invesco Physical Gold (IE00B579F325) and the WisdomTree Physical Silver.
What to do when the stock market crashes?
When the stock markets plummet, many people become extremely nervous. “Don't let yourself be unsettled,” advises Thomas Brummer from the ETF platform extraETF. Geopolitical conflicts cause short-term volatility. However, in the medium to long term, such slumps are hardly noticeable on the charts. According to Brummer, the greatest damage to portfolios is usually not caused by the event itself, but by three typical mistakes: panic selling out of fear of losses, market timing (“I'll get out now and get back in later”), and recency bias, i.e., extrapolating current events into the future. Instead of frantically rebalancing your portfolio, it makes sense to honestly assess your own risk tolerance.
- More on this: extraetf.com
“High volatility, high turnover”
Equity ETFs are also being traded actively. “High volatility, high turnover,” Völker summarizes. He sees buying and selling. “There is also a lot of activity in emerging market and Asian ETFs,” he adds. At ICF, a dividend ETF is once again the top performer in terms of turnover: the VanEck Morningstar Developed Markets Dividend Leaders (NL0011683594).
In the previous week, purchases had still predominated. “With slightly higher turnover, we had around 30 percent more purchases than sales,” reports Holger Heinrich from Baader Bank. On the buy side, a Nasdaq and an S&P 500 tracker stood out among US stocks, specifically the Amundi Core Nasdaq 100 Swap (LU1829221024) and the UBS Core S&P 500 (IE00BD34DK07). The iShares MSCI USA SRI (IE00BYVJRR92) and the State Street SPDR S&P 500 Quality Aristocrats (IE000FJJZA01) were reduced. In the area of world ETFs, Heinrich noted that two MSCI World ETFs from UBS with sustainability filters (IE00BN4Q0370, IE000TB15RC6) stood out on the buy side.
“In Europe, purchases dominated broad-based strategies,” Heinrich added. Examples include the Invesco Euro Stoxx 50 (IE00B60SWX25) and the BNP Paribas Easy MSCI Europe SRI PAB (LU1753045332). Sales mainly affected value and large-cap strategies, such as the UBS MSCI EMU Value (LU0950669845) and the iShares MSCI EMU Large Cap (IE00BCLWRF22).
Defense ETFs benefit once again
Defense trackers remain popular in trading with sector ETFs. “Demand has probably increased in the wake of the attack on Iran,” notes Orlemann. Particularly in demand are WisdomTree Europe Defense (IE0002Y8CX98) and VanEck Defense (IE000YYE6WK5). VanEck Defense, the largest defense ETF with over €7 billion in assets under management, recently recorded price gains again. However, it has not yet returned to its all-time high from January.
By Anna-Maria Borse, March 3, 2026, © Deutsche Börse AG
About the Author
Anna-Maria Borse is a finance and economics editor specializing in financial markets/stock exchanges and economic issues.
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