LONDON (MarketWatch) — It’s been a stunning 2015 for Germany’s DAX 30 index, but if you want to bank the most profits, now is the time to sell, according to Société Générale analysts.

The index DAX, -0.69% has logged 26 record closes since New Year’s, is up 23% year-to-date and is currently outperforming any major European peer — and that all adds up to an appealing selling case, SocGen argues.

“Take profits on the DAX index after the strong rally,” they noted in a report published on Friday. “The DAX index already looks overbought long term and is approaching a sell zone at nearly 12,000 points.”

The benchmark closed above 12,000 for the first ever last Monday as slumping oil prices lowered production costs for the energy-consumption heavy German industrials, the multiyear low for the euro made exports cheaper for overseas buyers and the European Central Bank’s aggressive easing program pumped up equity prices across the region.

“ We expect the German DAX to suffer from country rotation within the euro area and some margin squeeze due to higher wage growth. ” — Société Générale analysts

But the DAX is set to struggle to cruise above the 12,000 level. According to the SocGen forecasts, the benchmark will drop to 11,000 in the second quarter of 2015, before bouncing back to 12,000 by the of the year, giving it basically zero upside from here, the bank wrote. On Monday, the benchmark lost 1.2% to 11,901.51.

“We expect the German DAX to suffer from country rotation within the euro area and some margin squeeze due to higher wage growth,” the analysts said.

Instead, they advised to pile into Italy’s FTSE MIB XX:FTSEMIB and France’s CAC 40 index PX1, -1.21% as both are likely to “benefit from accelerating reforms in the respective countries.”

SocGen’s index forecasts Friday’s closing level End 2015 Potential up/downside Germany’s DAX30 12,039 12,000 -0.3% France’s CAC 40 5,088 5,400 6.1% Italy’s FTSE MIB 23,177 24,000 3.6%

Credit Suisse echoed SocGen’s view, but also brought another factor into view — the dollar DXY, +0.03% . The analysts at the Swiss bank argued that the greenback rally is going into a “pause phase”, which will hit the dollar-sensitive DAX index.

“So we reduce our overweight of the DAX and add to our overweight in Italy: the periphery is more domestic, relative performance correlates closely to the euro/dollar and PMIs are turning up (relative to core),” they said in a note on Friday.

Analysts at J.P. Morgan Cazenove supported that view in a note out on Monday, arguing that exporters don’t look so attractive anymore and that the boost from the strong dollar is fading.

“Put together, we believe that domestic plays should take over the leadership from exporters, and regionally that periphery, in particular Italy, will start outperforming core [and the] DAX,” they said.