After Christmas, things were very quiet on the German stock market. The Dax ended trading on Wednesday with a gain of 0.21 percent and closed at 16,742.07 points. This means that the leading index remained in close contact with the record high of just over two weeks ago at a good 17,000 points.
As is often the case shortly before the end of the year, most market players stayed away from the action. This was also reflected in very low trading volumes: with the 40 DAX stocks, a total of around 1.7 billion euros were traded on the Xetra trading system – on normal trading days it is more than twice as much.
The MDax of medium-sized companies rose by 0.79 percent to 27,157.63 points in the middle of the week, doing better than the Dax.
DAX rose sharply in 2023
After a weak stock market year in 2022, the one that is now coming to an end is once again a success for investors. The DAX has risen by a good 20 percent so far in 2023. The index made the majority of this annual gain from late October to mid-December. Falling inflation and the hope that key interest rates would soon fall were the driving forces. In the previous year, however, investors had to cope with a loss of more than twelve percent.
Price-moving impulses were rare this Wednesday. In the Dax, Bayer shares rose by 2.3 percent. After a series of defeats, the agrochemical and pharmaceutical company won a glyphosate lawsuit in the USA. According to one dealer, this was a “small ray of hope, but the story is far from over.”
As the leader in the leading index, Siemens Energy grew by 5.4 percent. However, the annual loss still amounts to almost a third. Like other stocks from the alternative energy sector, the shares benefited from major orders for Vestas. The Danish manufacturer of wind turbines received orders from the USA and Australia totaling around 1.2 gigawatts of power. That brightened the mood for the industry somewhat. The shares of Vestas’ competitor Nordex gained 4 percent in the MDax.
Hapag-Lloyd lost a good 8 percent after the share price had recovered by around 40 percent since mid-December. Rising freight rates due to attacks by Houthi rebels in the Red Sea had caused price gains, but now investors were pocketing profits. The competitor A.P. Moller-Maersk announced that it would soon allow ships to sail through the Red Sea again.
The European leading index EuroStoxx closed 0.15 percent higher at 4,528.38 points. France’s Cac 40 was essentially treading water, while Britain’s FTSE 100 closed somewhat more firmly. In New York, the leading index Dow Jones Industrial was moderately higher at the close of trading in Europe.
Euro climbs to 1.1117 US dollars
The euro continued its rally against the US dollar and rose to its highest level since the end of July. It was last traded at $1.1117. The European Central Bank previously set the reference rate at 1.1065 (Friday: 1.1023) US dollars. The dollar therefore cost 0.9037 (0.9071) euros.
On the bond market, the current yield fell from 1.99 percent on Friday to 1.96 percent. The Rex bond index rose by 0.03 percent to 128.71 points.
