Market Sentiment: “Recurring Patterns”
Active investors are now betting on the DAX’s volatility as news breaks. In Goldberg’s view, this is putting additional pressure on the market.
Summary
Looking at the DAX’s performance over the past week, Joachim Goldberg identifies a pattern of losses toward the weekend—at times exceeding 3 percent—followed by a recovery at the start of the week. Many investors are acting on this. For instance, 9 percent of professionals have closed their short positions since last Wednesday—some with profits, as the behavioral economist suspects—and 3 percent have gone long. The sentiment index jumps to +31 points. Retail investors have also moved in this direction, though their sentiment index stands at +17, significantly lower.
Goldberg draws a mixed conclusion: On the downside, the DAX lacks solid support, while on the upside, today’s bulls—who are still in the red—are likely to slow down a recovery starting at 23,600/650 DAX points. Should the market come to the conclusion that the situation in the Middle East is not improving after all, the next wave of selling would be imminent.
April 1, 2026. FRANKFURT (Goldberg & Goldberg). A few days after the start of the war with Iran, a rough price pattern began to emerge that has been observed repeatedly ever since: at the latest one day after our sentiment survey, the DAX heads into the weekend with a more or less significant decline. And at the start of the following week, there is a recovery, sometimes a significant one.
This was also the case this week, when things once again looked dire for the stock markets on both sides of the Atlantic heading into Friday evening. But with the start of the new week, everything changed again, and growing hopes for a swift end to the war—U.S. President Donald Trump apparently wants to withdraw from the Middle East within a few weeks—have given stock prices a boost.
In numerical terms, the DAX had temporarily fallen by 3.4 percent since our last sentiment survey, but ventured back into positive territory early this morning for the first time in a week, leaving a gain of 0.7 percent as of the reporting date.
Pessimists are pulling back
Sentiment among the institutional investors with a medium-term trading horizon whom we surveyed also followed the pattern of the previous week. Our Deutsche Börse Sentiment Index rose by 12 points compared to last Wednesday, reaching a new level of +31. In particular, the bear camp shrank by a significant 9 percentage points. Two-thirds of those willing to switch positions have closed out their positions and joined the ranks of the neutral investors. Only one-third of the former bears have moved directly to the bull side (presumably with profits), effectively reversing their positions by 180 degrees. As a result, the bull camp has increased by just 3 percentage points.
A similar trend has emerged among retail investors, albeit to a lesser extent. The Deutsche Börse Sentiment Index in this panel is also rising, though only by 5 points to a new level of +17. The bear camp is therefore shrinking less significantly (compared to institutional investors), by 3 percentage points, with those willing to switch spreading almost evenly (slightly in favor of the optimists) across the other two groups. If we look at the two subgroups—that is, the investors we survey via social media and the remaining retail investors—no difference can be observed in the final tally: The respective sentiment indices have each risen by 5 points in lockstep.
One wrong word might be all it takes
Nevertheless, today’s survey reveals a widening gap in sentiment between retail and institutional investors. The latter are significantly more positive. But not because the number of optimists among them has risen sharply. Rather, the bears have been calling the shots. The DAX’s pullback since our last survey was apparently used for buybacks, with the proportion of bearish institutional investors now at its lowest level of the year.
Consequently, the DAX’s downside is once again poorly supported, especially since demand potential has weakened compared to the previous week. The real problem, however, lies with the optimists, a large portion of whom still hold positions whose cost bases are likely well above the current price level—the cheapest of these are probably around 23,600/650 DAX points, which is why we expect the first selling pressure in this range. Moreover, should today’s optimists come to the conclusion that hopes for an improvement in the situation in the Middle East are proving illusory—presumably a single misguided statement would suffice to reinforce this suspicion—the next wave of selling on the DAX would not be long in coming. From a purely technical sentiment perspective, therefore, the DAX’s situation has not improved but remains unfavorable.
by Joachim Goldberg
April 1, 2026, © Goldberg & Goldberg for Deutsche Börse
Sentiment-Index institutional investors
| Bullish | Bearish | Neutral | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Total | 54% | 23% | 23% |
| vs. last survey | +3% | -9% | +6% |
DAX (change from previous survey): 23,150 points (+150 points from the last survey)
Deutsche Börse Sentiment Index for Institutional Investors: 31 points (+12 points from the last survey)
Sentiment-Index private investors
| Bullish | Bearish | Neutral | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Total | 50% | 33% | 17% |
| vs. last survey | +2% | -3% | +1% |
DAX (change from previous survey): 23,150 points (+150 points from the last survey)
Deutsche Börse Sentiment Index for Retail Investors: 17 points (+5 points from the last survey)
About the Deutsche Börse Sentiment-Index
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.
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