The Dax started the year 2023 on Monday with an increase of 0.5 percent.

With a score of 13,990 and quickly values ​​of just over 14,000 points, the stock index continued in the first few minutes of trading in 2023 from 2022, which it had ended at 13,923 points and brought losses of 12 percent.

The real crash, however, took place after many years of low interest rates and because of the sharp turnaround in interest rates that has now taken place on the bond market.

Hanno Mussler

Editor in Business.

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Many stockbrokers are now entering the new year with the hope that, despite the likely further rise in interest rates, there have rarely been two bad years for stocks in a row.

The main stock exchanges in Tokyo, Hong Kong, London and New York remained closed on Monday for public holidays.

As a result, the German stock market received little external impetus.

What the market technique reveals

The International Monetary Fund warned that a third of the world and half of EU countries are likely to enter recession in 2023.

The German Banking Association, with Deutsche Bank CEO Christian Sewing as President, expects the German economy to shrink by 1 percent.

Nevertheless, the few winners among the Dax stocks in 2022, which included Beiersdorf, Munich Re and RWE, remained among the favorites of investors at the beginning of 2023. 

Even technical analysts who focus less on fears of recession and company profits and instead focus on the state of the stock and bond markets find positive signals for rising prices or at least for a calming of the market.

Jörg Scherer, who heads technical analysis for HSBC Germany, thinks it is likely that 2023 will be a better year for stocks on Deutsche Börse than its predecessor.

And the technical analysts at MM Warburg expect the bond market to calm down, which in the past ten months in the United States has seen the sharpest rise in yields on ten-year government bonds (Treasuries) in history, from 1.4 to 4.4 percent had to cope with.

The yield on Bunds with a term of ten years also broke out of its downward trend channel, which can even be traced back to 1990, in 2022.

Funds that invest in European government bonds, such as DWS Eurorenta, suffered losses of a hefty 19 percent for their investors in 2022.

The value of the fund shares was thrown back to 2014.

In other words: Anyone who has invested in European government bonds, which are actually considered to be low-risk, in the past nine years has suffered losses, often even very high ones, which are actually only occasionally seen in equities.

Technical analysts now expect improvement on the German stock market in 2023.

One of their arguments: since the September low of 11,975 points, the Dax has recovered significantly in October and November to more than 14,500 points at times.

Despite the setback in December and the end of the year below 14,000 points, the Dax remained comfortably above its trade-weighted 200-day average price, which some technical analysts attach great importance to determining trends.

The Dax was also able to leave the downward trend, which can be drawn in a Dax price picture as a falling straight line from the 2022 annual high in January of around 16,270 points with a support point on the June high at around 14,600 points.