The moment the ES takes over

Not a time, an event

We say "3:30 pm" for convenience. In reality, the moment the DAX stops writing its own story is not a fixed time, it is an event, and it can happen at 2:30 pm on a statistic, at 3:30 pm at the open, or not happen at all on a day when the United States has nothing to say.

Recognising it live is a skill specific to the DAX. Three signs, in the order they appear:

1. The DAX reacts to ES ticks before its own orders. On the heatmap, a DAX band gets crossed without any visible aggression having hit it from the DAX book: price moved because the ES moved, and the DAX orders were executed by correlation algos.
2. The move ratio stabilises. One ES point is worth, depending on the day, 3 to 5 DAX points. When that ratio becomes stable over several minutes, the correlation algos have taken control.