The prospect of faster falling inflation in the euro zone drove the German stock market on Thursday. The leading index Dax reached another record high in the afternoon. At its peak, the DAX rose to 17,879.11 points. He continued the record hunt that was recently interrupted. At the end of trading there was an increase of 0.71 percent to 17,842.85 points. The MDax closed 0.03 percent higher at 26,167.61 points.
According to the European Central Bank (ECB), inflation in the euro area will fall faster than expected in December. The ECB now expects an inflation rate of 2.3 percent for the current year. In its forecast presented in December, the central bank had assumed 2.7 percent. The central bank has also become somewhat more optimistic for 2025.
“Overall, the fight against inflation in the euro area is on the right track,” said Ulrich Kater, chief economist at DekaBank. Economist Ulrike Kastens from the asset manager DWS saw it similarly: “There is significant progress in combating inflation.” Chief economist Mark Wall of Deutsche Bank wrote: “The ECB is moving closer to its first interest rate cut.”
This gave a boost to real estate stocks, which were suffering from high interest rates. Vonovia was one of the top winners in the Dax with a plus of 3.1 percent. In the MDax, LEG, TAG Immobilien and Aroundtown increased by 3.5 to 6.1 percent.
Brenntag was at the bottom of the DAX with a loss of 5.8 percent. Investors reacted with disappointment that the chemicals trader was not buying back any more shares, as the investment house Stifel wrote. At Continental, stock market investors criticized the profitability target for this year as being too low, and Conti shares lost 1.2 percent. Merck KGaA’s business figures and annual targets pushed the share price down by 1.1 percent.
In the MDax, Hugo Boss fell by almost 14 percent and in the SDax, GFT Technologies fell by 8.5 percent. At the fashion retailer Boss, analysts pointed out that sales and earnings targets fell short of expectations. At the IT service provider GFT, the sales target for 2024 was disappointing.
The Eurozone leading index EuroStoxx 50 gained 1.19 percent to 4974.22 points. In Paris, the Cac 40 surpassed the 8,000 point mark for the first time with a record high. Things were also looking up in London. In the USA, the Dow Jones Industrial rose by 0.3 percent at the European market close, while the Nasdaq indices rose significantly more.
The euro gained and was trading at $1.0936 in the evening. The ECB had previously set the reference rate at $1.0895. On the bond market, the current yield fell from 2.41 percent the day before to 2.37 percent. The Rex bond index rose by 0.13 percent to 125.40 points. The Bund future rose by 0.17 percent to 133.34 points in the evening.