No further proof was needed, and yet it hit investors hard on November 26, 2021.

A minus in the Dax of over 4 percent in one day, nobody had expected that suddenly after the many record highs.

But it can happen that fast.

A new coronavirus variant had emerged from South Africa, and investors promptly first lost their nerve in Asia, then in Europe and later also in the USA.

At least the losses could be limited somewhat, and in the end it did not turn out to be a completely black Friday.

And yet the question arises as to whether the originally planned year-end rally will fail or whether there will be a real crash on the stock exchanges at the finale.

Inken Schönauer

Editor in business, responsible for the financial market.

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The investment strategist Henning Gebhardt, who was once a fund manager at DWS and is now responsible for the Millennium Global Opportunities fund, has decided: "We actually had the year-end rally in October," said Gebhardt in the FAZ podcast finances and real estate.

“Nice company figures, nice prospects, nice highs, and now Corona has thwarted the bill again.” Gebhardt doesn't think that this shock will be shaken off so quickly and seamlessly resumed the old trend.

"I cannot imagine that there will be another rally now."

The stock market no longer seemed to be a yardstick

Even if the ups and downs on the stock market are completely normal, the vehemence of the reaction around Omikron is surprising. In March 2020, when the number of infected people gradually rose in Germany too, investors fled mainly high-risk stocks. Together with the decline in the oil market, a black Monday actually occurred on March 9th. Experts call this a "risk-off movement". Too much uncertainty. The markets crashed worldwide. The Dax went down on its knees and should come threateningly close to the 8000 mark in the days that followed.

Since then, however, the investors had settled in the corona madness. The stock exchange as a yardstick for the economy seemed to have completely lost its informative value. Because the economy groaned under increasingly tougher rules and finally under lockdown. On the stock exchange, however, things went briskly upwards, with new highs being displayed. And by the way, not only in Germany, but also in the USA. "The markets had got used to Corona," says Gebhardt. The minus from a week ago is probably just a setback in an otherwise upward trend. Up because the economic outlook for 2022 is actually good. "Such setbacks are part of the rhythm of the markets," says Gebhardt in the podcast. That is not always immediately worrying. "It is good,when a bit of euphoria is taken out from time to time. ”In fact, many stocks - especially in the tech sector - are currently overvalued.

"The coronavirus can still unbalance supply and demand, which is reflected in risk-off behavior on the financial markets," writes Chris Iggo from Axa Investment Managers in an analysis.

Typically, unexpected shocks would raise the question of whether the global economy is able to maintain its pace of recovery.

This in turn triggers the purchase of supposedly safe investments, which leads to counter-intuitive movements in bond yields when the macroeconomic narrative is characterized by inflationary growth and higher interest rates.

“This market behavior is likely to continue in the coming year,” writes Iggo.