Market sentiment: “Woken Up”
The stock markets have been shaken up, with domestic shareholders responding by buying shares and taking new short positions. Goldberg does not see this as a bad sign.
Summary
Disturbing news, critical comments, and September's poor reputation are pushing stock market prices down. Medium-term investors are reacting very differently. Some professionals are switching to both the long and short sides. Only private investors are not betting on rising prices at the moment. The sentiment indices of both groups are in negative territory, close to each other at -18 and -12 points.
Joachim Goldberg points out that at 47 percent, almost half of all professionals are negative. He sees a lot of genuine pessimism behind this. In addition, there has been virtually no profit-taking by the bears. However, purchases have kept sentiment stable. The behavioral economist does not consider German blue chips to be lost “despite all the doom and gloom.” He now sees support at 23,200/250 points on the downside.
3 September 2025. FRANKFURT (Goldberg & Goldberg). The fact that trading on the local stock markets was fairly quiet last week may have been interpreted by some stock market traders as the calm before the storm. It also seemed suspicious that the DAX was unable to gain any upward momentum. But after the US holiday last Monday, everything suddenly changed. Whether it was US hedge fund manager Ray Dalio warning of a US financial crisis, or the rise in bond market yields, with 30-year British gilts hitting a new 27-year high – or, more likely, the accumulation of news that also had a significant impact on the DAX. Added to this was probably the fear of September, which has always been a difficult month for US stock markets over the past 100 years, setting off alarm bells for some players. Not to mention the other political news from the US, such as the widely feared loss of independence of the US Federal Reserve. This combination of factors must have been decisive in causing the DAX to lose 2.1 percent in value over the week.
Profits not taken
Meanwhile, the mood among the institutional investors we surveyed with a medium-term trading horizon has hardly changed compared to the previous week. Our Frankfurt Stock Exchange Sentiment Index has improved by just one point to a new level of -18. However, the polarization between bulls and bears has increased. In fact, the group of neutral investors has shrunk significantly, by 7 percentage points – slightly more than half have moved to the bulls, the rest to the bears. The fact that bears, at 47 percent of all respondents, are even more strongly represented than in the previous week is remarkable in that we would have expected slightly more demand from profit-taking at the lower end of the spectrum based on these sources. The fear of further price losses was obviously stronger than the desire to lock in profits.
The situation is different for private investors, whose Frankfurt Stock Exchange Sentiment Index fell by 5 points to a new level of -12. Overall, there was a shift from bullish to bearish sentiment. Remarkably, the sentiment level in this panel is the lowest since August 16, 2023. This is because private investors are normally considered to be fundamentally more optimistic. From a relative perspective, looking at the three- and six-month outlook, it can be said that the mood is even worse than the absolute level of the sentiment index suggests. Recently, only those private investors we surveyed via social media were optimistic, while the majority of other investors were pessimistic.
Pessimism among private investors
Today's survey shows that the gap between the mood of private investors and institutional investors has narrowed slightly. However, if we compare the mood of private investors who we do not survey via social media with that of institutional investors, there is no longer any significant difference in behavior. In this analysis, private investors even appear to be somewhat more pessimistic than their institutional counterparts.
The bottom line is that yesterday's trading day in particular seems to have given stock market traders quite a scare. Some were even prepared to jump on the bearish bandwagon late in the day despite falling prices. There was also virtually no profit-taking on the part of institutional bears. However, some previously neutral investors have apparently taken the plunge and entered into new bullish positions, although new bearish positions have also been opened. A closer analysis reveals that the group of neutral investors has been used over the past three weeks to covertly shift originally bullish positions to the bearish side. Overall, the sentiment surrounding the DAX has not changed much compared to last week, and despite all the doom and gloom, the DAX is not lost, especially since domestic demand (today's pessimists) could provide support for the DAX on the downside (at 23,200/250 points?).
by Joachim Goldberg
3 September 2025, © Goldberg & Goldberg for boerse-frankfurt.de
Sentiment index of institutional investors
| Bullish | Bearish | Neutral | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Total | 29% | 47% | 24% |
| vs. last survey | +4% | +3% | -7% |
DAX (change since last survey): 23.600 points (-500 points since last survey)
Frankfurt Stock Exchange Sentiment Index for institutional investors: -18 points (+1 points since last survey)
Sentiment index of private investors
| Bullish | Bearish | Neutral | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Total | 36% | 48% | 16% |
| vs. last survey | -2% | +3% | -1% |
DAX (change since last survey): 23.600 points (-500 points since last survey)
Frankfurt Stock Exchange Sentiment Index for private investors: -12 points (-5 points since last survey)
About the Frankfurt Stock Exchange Sentiment Index
The Frankfurt Stock Exchange 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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