FRANKFURT (DEUTSCHE BOERSE AG) - Price gains are built on a shaky foundation, Goldberg summarizes regarding the current market condition.
April 9, 2026. FRANKFURT (Goldberg & Goldberg). What a difference a 14-day ceasefire in the Iran war, announced last night by US President Donald Trump, can make on the stock exchanges when the original reference point is low enough! For many market participants, this baseline was clearly rooted in the fear that the war could escalate with increased stakes.
In such a situation, anything that offers even a glimmer of hope is perceived with particular intensity. This is the only way to understand the roughly five percent "leap of joy" performed by the DAX at this morning's opening. Even though Iran agreed to this ceasefire and the Strait of Hormuz is initially being reopened, it remains completely uncertain what will happen once this truce expires. Prior to this, since our last sentiment survey, the stock market barometer had weakened by 2 percent at times, and the mood of many investors had once again soured ahead of the long Easter weekend (cf. the Sentix survey). Nevertheless, all in all, the DAX has gained 3.7 percent week-on-week.
However, there is no sign of newly awakened, great joy in the Deutsche Börse Sentiment Index for institutional investors. In fact, it has even decreased by one point compared to the previous week to a new level of +30. Polarization between bulls and bears has increased slightly, with the bear camp growing a touch larger. The consistently high level of optimists shows, however, that the rise in the DAX was certainly welcome, even if it apparently was not enough to entice position squaring.
Profits among private investors
Among private investors, meanwhile, we are seeing a stronger movement. The Deutsche Börse Sentiment Index in this panel fell by 14 points to a new level of +3. This represents the lowest index level so far this year. It appears that bullish commitments were significantly reduced. At the same time, the bear camp gained 8 percentage points, three-quarters of which came from former optimists who turned their positions 180 degrees on balance. The remainder naturally came from previously neutral investors.
When distinguishing between those we survey via social media and other investors, the trend toward the bear camp is significantly more pronounced among the latter. This subgroup, which we like to compare with institutional investors, now even shows a sentiment index of -6.
Tethered winners
With today's survey, the sentiment divergence between private and institutional investors has widened further. The fact that the former are, for once, so much more pessimistic than their institutional counterparts may well be due to different positioning in the run-up. In particular, the courage of some private investors to flip directly from "long" to "short" in some cases is likely an indication that profits were generated previously.
Profit-taking, however, took place only to a small extent among institutional investors, which is presumably not because they believe in a sustainable turnaround in the Iran war. Rather, we fear that even today's significant recovery in the DAX has not yet been sufficient to exit the bullish commitments - some of which were established weeks ago - relatively unscathed; the corresponding (perceived) entry prices are likely to be even higher than the 24,000 DAX level (+2 percent?) seen today.
Thus, today's price jump is likely primarily attributable to short-term oriented market participants who are not captured by our survey. The downside is not particularly well supported, not least because of today's price jump, especially if negative events should reappear on the news horizon. In any case, the potential demand to catch up on bullish commitments is comparatively meager, especially since neutral investors - i.e., potential buyers - account for less than a fifth of all respondents in total. On balance, the situation for the DAX has improved only insignificantly from a sentiment perspective.
by Joachim Goldberg
April 9, 2026, © Goldberg & Goldberg for Deutsche Börse
(Deutsche Börse AG is solely responsible for the content of this column. The articles do not constitute an invitation to buy or sell securities or other assets.)
