After jumping to over 14,000 points the day before, the Dax gave up its price gains from early trading on Thursday. At 14,094.89 points, the leading German index was just below its previous day’s close around noon, but still comfortably above the 14,000 mark.
The MDax for medium-sized stocks also barely moved at 25,484.18 points, and the leading eurozone index, the EuroStoxx 50, was virtually unchanged. “The skepticism about the further development of the economy in Europe and the thin trading volume are causing the price gains to melt away again,” explained market expert Andreas Lipkow.
A pessimistic forecast by US memory chip manufacturer Micron Technology weighed on sentiment in the European semiconductor sector. According to Micron, the industry’s largest oversupply in more than a decade is likely to make it difficult to return to profitability in 2023. On the German stock market, sector stocks such as Infineon or Aixtron recently fell by 0.6 percent each.
Automobile shares rallied at the back of the Dax, with Volkswagen losing two percent at the bottom. Deutsche Bank, on the other hand, continued its rally as one of the favorites in the index with a plus of 1.2 percent. Bank shares benefited from the signs of a calming down in the Chinese real estate sector and the rising interest rates in Europe, the USA and Japan, explained expert Lipkow.
Rheinmetall continued the price recovery after Tuesday’s setback with growth of 3.3 percent. The armaments company wants to work with Krauss-Maffei Wegmann (KMW) to repair the defective Puma infantry fighting vehicle in the next two to three weeks. On Tuesday, the problems with the tank weighed heavily on the Rheinmetall price, and the price losses have long since been ironed out.
Hornbach Holding confirmed its forecast for the year after submitting quarterly figures. Stocks were moderately higher at 0.4 percent. However, a retailer criticized the margins of the DIY store operator, which were a bit weaker than hoped.
The stocks of the fuel cell manufacturer SFC Energy, which was included in the SDax small-cap index on December 27, also recorded a plus of 2.4 percent. For this, the stocks of the supplier and gas importer Uniper have to leave the index after it has been rescued by the state. Uniper fell 3.4 percent on Thursday.
