The record mood is over in the Dax for now.

The index reached its previous high last week at 16,290 points.

But the rapidly increasing number of new corona cases and the virus variant from South Africa, which could be even more contagious than the current delta variant, have added to the German leading index.

By Friday, around 1000 points or six percent had been lost since the record high.

This is not yet a disaster, as crisis-tested shareholders know, but the ideal stock world of the past few weeks has been scratched.

Daniel Mohr

Editor in the economy of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung.

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The big question for the next few weeks will therefore be: will we stick with the scratch, or will the good mood on the stock markets be tarnished for the long term?

Andreas Strobl, Head of German Equities and Fund Manager at Berenberg Bank, remains optimistic: "The big picture of the global economic recovery, especially in the United States, remains." He expects corporate profits to continue to rise, the most important parameter for rising share prices.

"But the risks are increasing, from a lack of chips to a lack of specialists to the risk that the vaccines are not as effective against new virus variants," says Strobl.

So far, the stock market has been hit in some parts.

The majority of the DAX stocks have left their uptrend.

Of course, there are still those irrepressible success stories like Sartorius, whose share price is around 60 percent up again this year.

Daimler, Merck and Siemens Healthineers follow with around 50 percent plus.

But in the Dax, a third of the 40 values ​​have been in the red since the beginning of the year.

Lots of room for improvement

What does that say about the stock market when so many stocks are no longer keeping up and only a few stocks are still pulling the index? Joachim Schallmayer, chief investment strategist at the Sparkasse fund company Deka, is not upset: “This is not worrying, it is not a warning signal. German companies have never earned so much money, but that is not the case with every company year after year, some take a break from time to time. ”He is very optimistic about the market as a whole:“ The German stock market has out of all the major industrial countries markets this year achieved the lowest rating increase, there is still a lot of room for improvement, ”says Schallmayer. "The companies are pushing a large mountain of orders in front of them and are earning extremely good margins." There is the downside of the rising prices:Companies can pass these on when there is high overall demand. Inflation in particular could help: “In times of inflation, stocks were always very well positioned.” Corona should not change that: “The direction of the capital market will depend on the effectiveness of vaccines and drugs against the virus variants. If this is the case, the market will very quickly pick up on its upward trend after a brief shock correction, ”says Schallmayer.the market will pick up on its upward trend very quickly after a brief shock correction, ”says Schallmayer.the market will pick up on its upward trend very quickly after a brief shock correction, ”says Schallmayer.

But which titles will then be in demand?

The same winners from the past few months?

Or have they long been exhausted and the stragglers more attractive?

Jürgen Hackenberg, head of the equity fund management department at the Volksbank fund company Union Investment, sees it soberly: “We have a reasonably efficient capital market, with companies at the top of the index winners that do well.

But we look very carefully if titles have not kept up during the upswing, ”says Hackenberg.

"The profit trend is crucial for us, it has to be right."