Stock market in view: Quarterly figures from two presumably unattractive sectors surprise

The two stocks BASF and Deutsche Bank from the DAX represent a stock market trend from which long-term investors can derive some benefit.

The third quarter earnings season is in full swing these days and in the coming days. What surprised the Dax last week was not the former booming sectors of technology or armaments, but rather two companies from presumably stagnating, perhaps even rather boring sectors.

Deutsche Bank achieved a net profit of 1.6 billion euros in the months from July to September, earning better than analysts had expected.

Growth drivers are asset management with record inflows as well as private and corporate customer business. Net interest income was 3.7 billion euros. Deutsche Bank granted more loans and benefited from sharply rising interest rates in Europe and the USA.

BASF has raised its profit forecast for the second time this year. Europe's largest chemical manufacturer is benefiting from the consequences of the Iran war and was able to significantly increase its sales prices.

Asian competitors in particular are severely affected by supply chain problems, including the temporary blockage of the Strait of Hormuz. BASF has Verbund sites where plants are so closely networked that intermediate products are processed directly. This makes the group more resilient.

Ludwigshafen is the oldest network location. Producing in this way has been considered outdated since the triumph of globalization, which began after the collapse of the communist states in Eastern Europe and Asia before the turn of the millennium. Free trade agreements and increasingly cheaper delivery routes made it more profitable to manufacture products in different continents and transport them around the world.

This is changing since more and more countries, led by US President Donald Trump, are relying on trade restrictions and sealing themselves off with tariffs, as in previous centuries. This makes local production cheaper again.

For a long time, the financial and chemical sectors were not very popular on the stock markets. Instead, sectors such as technology and defense dominate. But rising interest rates and geopolitical crises are causing a turnaround or at least stopping the price decline: Since the end of the zero interest rate phase in the euro zone in the summer of 2022, the price of Deutsche Bank shares has more than tripled. BASF shares have risen by a good 15 percent since the US attack on Iran began in spring 2026.

The advice for long-term investors is never to invest all of their capital in stocks from individual boom sectors. Sooner or later this will take its toll, as the Dax is currently impressively showing: the Rheinmetall arms share, which has risen by more than 1,000 percent in the past five years, has lost 40 percent over the last twelve months. The biggest winner becomes the biggest loser.

The asset manager Gottfried Heller, who died in the last few days at the age of 91 and was a long-time companion of stock market legend André Kostolany, gave investors the advice in the Handelsblatt in 2013: "Invest for the long term. Timing, i.e. getting the right time to buy, is unimportant and, by the way, it won't work anyway."