Getting used to something you don't want to get used to is something terrible. And yet it is above all patterns of habituation that can be seen everywhere when one looks back at the development of the financial markets over the past year. On February 24, 2022, Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine began. Especially in the following March, financial markets around the world reacted with extreme swings. Gold cost at times more than 2000 dollars per troy ounce (31.1 grams), the oil price rose to an incredible 130 dollars per barrel (about 159 liters) for the North Sea variety Brent. And on the German stock market, the leading index Dax experienced a veritable price slump to less than 13,000 points.

Now, one year after the beginning of the war, the Dax is more than 10 percent higher at a good 15,300 points. Oil and gas are even cheaper than before the war. And despite all the geopolitical risks, the gold price does not even manage to approach the $1900 mark again. At least "until now", as the financial markets have become accustomed to saying – but the longer the war lasts, the more preliminary assessments seem to become those of greater durability. The people of Ukraine continue to endure the suffering and horror of this war every day. Why, then, are share prices in Germany higher now than they were a year ago – even though Germany has indisputably become poorer as a result of the consequences of the war?

"Of course, the price shock has made us poorer as a country, and households have tightened their belts," says macroeconomist Moritz Schularick of the University of Bonn. Especially in the last quarter of 2022, private consumption in Germany fell, which was not surprising in view of the real wage losses last year. All in all, however, it is a decline in economic output that does not deserve the word "crisis", says the economist: German industry in particular has come through the year relatively well, despite the decline in energy-intensive areas.

Putin's attack on Ukraine caused the stock markets to collapse last year, mainly because of fears of the gas tap turning off, explains Jörg Krämer, chief economist at Commerzbank. "Prices only began to recover in October, when it became apparent that we would be spared a gas shortage and thus a severe recession." This "pricing in" and later "pricing out" of a threatening gas shortage was a major driver of share prices.

The Dax lives from natural gas

Ulrich Stephan, Deutsche Bank's chief investment strategist for private and corporate clients, cites three arguments as to why the Dax in particular is now doing quite well again: First, the German economy grew by 1.8 percent last year; the worst fears regarding a gas shortage had not been confirmed. Not only the chemical industry, but the entire Dax correlates significantly with gas prices. In addition, the Dax is a "cyclical index": it benefits from the economic outlook, which has increasingly improved. And thirdly, the DAX companies generated more than 20 percent of their sales in the Asia-Pacific region – which is why they are particularly benefiting from the reopening of China.