FRANKFURT (DEUTSCHE BÖRSE AG) - Professionals are using the price declines of the past week to cover short positions for a profit, while private investors are more inclined to sell equities: Joachim Goldberg explains what this means for the overall market.

April 30, 2026. FRANKFURT (Goldberg & Goldberg). The fact that the DAX has produced a trading range of just two percent since our last sentiment survey - the narrowest band since the start of the Iran war - shows more than just how much market participants have grown accustomed to geopolitical developments. Rather, this restraint is likely due to the fact that significant events must be processed starting tonight and over the coming days. The least market-moving impact is expected from the latest meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee led by Jerome Powell. The same applies to tomorrow's meeting of the ECB Governing Council; it too is unlikely to offer much in the way of surprises. In contrast, greater attention appears to be focused on key quarterly results from the US due for release today, as well as numerous economic data points in the second half of the week.

Given the comparatively narrow trading range since our last survey, the renewed shift in sentiment among the institutional investors we surveyed with a medium-term trading horizon is surprisingly pronounced. Our Deutsche Börse Sentiment Index has risen by 23 points compared to the previous week to a new level of +17.

Profitable within a narrow range

In the process, almost all of last week's bears have closed their engagements, causing the group of pessimists to shrink by 14 percentage points. Almost two-thirds of them, in light of the resulting price gains, immediately switched back to the side of the optimists, effectively performing a 180-degree turn on their positions. The remaining third moved to the neutral camp. There is much to suggest that these repositionings were primarily performance-driven rather than based on a reassessment of the geopolitical and macroeconomic situation.

On the other hand, sentiment among private investors has moved significantly in the opposite direction. The Deutsche Börse Sentiment Index in this panel fell by 10 points to a new level of +4. The bull camp was reduced by 7 percentage points, distributed almost equally between the group of pessimists and those who expect the DAX to remain unchanged. The recent shifts are particularly attributable to those private investors whom we do not survey via social media. Their sub-index fell again - as it did last week - this time by 7 points to a new level of -4.

Divergent trends among private investors

Taking the sentiment of private investors and institutional investors together, one could almost speak of a Babylonian confusion of voices or sentiment. Not least because those private investors not surveyed via social media are even more pessimistic than last week, which is all the more remarkable as this subgroup tends to vote more like institutional investors. It is quite possible that the previous positioning among private investors was in part less favorable (bullish in many places during the downward movement).

However, a relative perspective over the first four months of this year sheds some light on this confusion. Seen this way, institutional investors are far less bullish than the absolute level of the Deutsche Börse Sentiment Index of +14 suggests. From this viewpoint, relative sentiment is only slightly above the neutral zero line.

In the overall assessment, however, the sentiment-technical situation of the DAX has deteriorated, because despite renewed buying from the institutional side, the market barometer weakened by 1.2 percent week-on-week. This is possibly because long-term investors could not warm up to DAX stocks. And should the DAX actually recover once more, supply from profit-taking by domestic investors in the range between 24,550 and 24,600 points would likely stand in the way of a further rise.

by Joachim Goldberg

April 30, 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.)