Price data from the USA put a damper on the record rally on the German stock market on Thursday. The leading index Dax reached a historic high again at midday with a good 18,039 points. Afterwards, the prices collapsed again somewhat. At the end of the Xetra, the Dax was down 0.11 percent to 17,942 points. The index of medium-sized companies, the MDax, fell by 0.34 percent to 26,262 points.
Price data from the USA put a damper on the record rally on the German stock market on Thursday. The leading index Dax reached a historic high again at midday with a good 18,039 points. Afterwards, the prices collapsed again somewhat. At the end of the Xetra, the Dax was down 0.11 percent to 17,942 points. The index of medium-sized companies, the MDax, fell by 0.34 percent to 26,262 points.
In the USA, price inflation at the company level in February was significantly stronger than expected. Compared to the same month last year, producer prices increased by 1.6 percent. Analysts on average had only expected 1.1 percent. As a result, share prices gave up some of their gains. In contrast, yields on the US bond market rose sharply. Investors slightly scaled back their expectations of interest rate cuts by the US Federal Reserve.
“Nobody can completely rule out a new upward spiral in prices because raw material prices have been rising again in the past few weeks,” wrote analyst Konstantin Oldenburger from broker CMC Markets. In view of this, doubts are currently growing among investors as to whether the Fed will be able to initiate a turnaround in interest rates in a timely manner.
Among the individual stocks, companies’ balance sheets in particular once again caused significant price fluctuations. Rheinmetall took the lead in the Dax with a plus of 5.3 percent and another record high. The arms company and automotive supplier wants to continue to grow significantly in the current year due to its full order books.
This is different for RWE shares, which fell at the bottom of the DAX by 3.5 percent. Here, traders complained that the electricity company had not made a clear statement about share buybacks. BMW shares fell 3 percent after operating profit in the car business fell short of expectations.
In the MDax, the shares of Lanxess and RTL were penalized with losses of 6.5 and 7.4 percent. After a slump in profits in 2023, the chemical company Lanxess is still faced with a challenging environment in the first half of the year. According to market participants, the media group RTL is also disappointingly cautious about the year 2024.
Meanwhile, the Encavis share price shot up by 25 percent to just under 17 euros and to the top of the MDax. The US financial investor KKR wants to take over the Hamburg wind and solar park operator. KKR is offering shareholders 17.50 euros per Encacis share. The family business Viessmann is involved as a co-investor in the deal.
The EuroStoxx 50 closed 0.15 percent lower at 4993.12 points. France’s Cac 40 closed slightly higher and Britain’s FTSE 100 fell slightly. In the USA, the Dow Jones Industrial fell by 0.2 percent at the European market close.
The euro fell and cost 1.0892 US dollars in the evening. The European Central Bank (ECB) had previously set the reference rate at $1.0925.
On the bond market, the current yield rose from 2.37 percent the day before to 2.42 percent. The Rex bond index fell by 0.25 percent to 125.06 points. The Bund future fell by 0.41 percent to 132.04 points in the evening.
Source: Stern
