Market sentiment: “No euphoria despite all-time high”

January 7, 2026. FRANKFURT (Goldberg & Goldberg). The DAX has made an impressive start to the new year, continuing the trend since our last sentiment survey on December 17 last year. Since then, the stock market barometer has risen by around 3.5 percent overall – 2.2 percent this year alone. Suddenly, what seemed extremely difficult last year has become easy. Not only have there been three new all-time highs in a row, but the round mark of 25,000 points was also surpassed today. Stock market traders have thus been little affected by the geopolitical tensions surrounding the US military action in Venezuela and US President Donald Trump's claims on Greenland. And as far as macroeconomic data is concerned, such as the various figures on the US labor market due to be published this week, these seem to play a rather minor role in the perception of market participants.

Meanwhile, the sentiment among the institutional investors with a medium-term trading horizon that we surveyed has deteriorated compared with that of December 17 last year. Our Deutsche Börse Sentiment Index has fallen by 12 points to a new level of +4. The bull camp has shrunk by 6 percentage points, while the bear camp has grown by the same amount. Due to the relatively long period between the two surveys, it is quite possible that this change is less drastic than it actually appears.

The lure of the round number

It is quite possible that profit-taking took place at the end of the old year, as in many places the clocks were reset to zero at the turn of the year, meaning that profits and losses accumulated up to that point were mentally written off. It also fits the picture that new bearish positions were opened in the rising market in the new year, especially since 25,000 DAX points represented an important psychological level.

However, the situation is different for private investors, who had already taken profits from their recent bullish positions before Christmas. This was reflected in last year's Deutsche Börse Sentiment Index, which had recently fallen to +5 in this panel. In today's survey, however, the index rose again by 20 points to a new level of +25. The bull camp increased by 16 percentage points, with a quarter of bearish players changing sides directly – three-quarters of the shift can be attributed to private investors who were recently neutral.

A closer look reveals that the investors we surveyed via social media acted similarly to other private investors. The Deutsche Börse Sentiment Index for the latter subgroup stands at +17. Experience shows that private investors surveyed via social media are slightly more bullish.

Two worlds

Ultimately, there is a significant gap in sentiment between private and institutional investors. Positioning ahead of the end of the year played a major role in shifting sentiment. While private investors were still unusually cautious in our previous sentiment survey and have moved to the bullish side in the new year from many neutral positions, their institutional counterparts are more cautious. However, these positions do not necessarily reflect strong pessimism, but may have been taken due to the comparatively high DAX levels of recent days (all-time high, etc.) in order to profit as quickly as possible from a setback. From this perspective at least, demand from the closing out of these positions can be expected in the event of an actual correction in the 24,400/24,500 range. All in all, the DAX is entering the new year with a slightly positive sentiment.

by Joachim Goldberg

January 7, 2026, © Goldberg & Goldberg for Deutsche Börse

The Deutsche Börse Sentiment Index ranges between -100 (total pessimism) and +100 (total optimism), with the transition from positive to negative values marking the neutral line.

• previous analyses
• explanations of the method