Bad stock market news only? Recent study analyzes coverage of the stock market of the German news outlet heute-journal

The public often perceives the media as mainly reporting on negative events. However, a blanket explanation, that positive news are simply considered less relevant, falls short.
In their study, Ciccone and Rusche investigated this phenomenon based on DAX reports from the ZDF heute-journal between 2017 and 2024. Germany’s most-watched news show airs nearly daily. It was broadcast more than 1,800 times during the investigation period. On around 30 percent of the trading days, the daily performance of Germany’s DAX index was covered on the show.

Despite an average DAX increase by around seven percent each year within the investigation period—which equals a DAX increase by more than four index points per day—reporting on the daily changes of the stock market on the heute-journal was significantly more negative: On days the DAX was covered in the market reports, the index dropped by around 10 points on average. This shows that the reporting systematically deviates from the actual market development. While the real DAX increased from 11,481 to 16,000 points within the investigation period, the fictitious ZDF-reported DAX dropped to 5,845 points. This suggests a fictitious drop by eight percent each year.