FRANKFURT — Following three consecutive days of gains, DAX investors have abandoned their offices, homes and standing dinner reservations and physically relocated to the Frankfurt trading floor, where they now sit cross-legged between the monitors, refusing to move until Thursday's export data, US labor market figures and central bank statements have all been published at the same moment.
«We have arranged the chairs in a semicircle facing the main screen,» said one portfolio manager, who has not blinked since Tuesday. «The export numbers come at nine. The American jobs report at half past. A central banker speaks at noon. We will remain seated until all three have spoken, and then we will decide whether to stand up.»
The floor has been reorganized into three zones: one for reading export data, one for watching US futures, and one for listening to central bankers with heads tilted at a precise angle. A rotation scheme now governs bathroom breaks, with investors swapping places every eleven minutes so that no seat ever cools down.
By Wednesday evening, the building's cafeteria had begun delivering meals directly to the desks on rolling carts, and the exchange had installed additional power strips along the floor. A junior analyst was seen measuring the distance from his chair to the nearest screen with a tailor's tape, then adjusting it by two centimeters.
«We are not nervous,» another investor said, staring at a blank monitor. «We are positioned. There is a difference.»