Stock exchange in Frankfurt: Dax with moderate profits

Supported by records on the US stock exchanges, the Dax rose moderately in shortened trading on Friday. On the last trading day of the year, Xetra trading ends at 2 p.m.

Shortly after the start, the leading German index gained 0.31 percent to 16,753.56 points. This means it remains close to its record high, which it reached in mid-December at just over 17,000 points. The MDax of medium-sized companies rose by 0.16 percent to 27,109.16 points in the morning. With an increase of around 20 percent so far for the Dax and almost eight percent for the index of medium-sized stocks, both have had a very profitable year.

Expectations that key interest rates would soon fall again had fueled the stock markets on both sides of the Atlantic in the past few weeks and pushed them to record highs. In mid-December, however, the Dax ran out of steam, while new records were reached in New York the evening before before the US stock exchanges ended trading with little change.

There was no price-moving news about individual stocks in the major indices on the German market. There was therefore little movement among the individual stocks in the Dax, with car manufacturer shares occupying the top and bottom of the leading index: While BMW rose by 0.8 percent, VW fell by 0.4 percent. Over the course of the year, BMW is slightly above average with a plus of just over 21 percent. Volkswagen, however, is one of the losers in 2023 with a loss of 4 percent.

In the MDax that day, Delivery Hero’s shares were ahead with a gain of 2.3 percent. However, like the years 2021 and 2022, the year 2023 was lousy: at just over minus 44 percent, the food supplier’s share was by far the worst-performing of the 50 stocks. K+S was at the bottom of the index of medium-sized stocks this morning with minus 0.7 percent. The fertilizer company can also look back on a very weak year, with a loss of just over 22 percent.