Investors on the German stock market did not make any big bets on Tuesday before the reporting season was approaching. At least the Dax made it back into positive territory despite persistent interest rate and recession concerns. The leading German index closed 0.21 percent higher at 15,846.86 points. The MDax for medium-sized companies had already reached its high for the year at the beginning of February. On Tuesday it increased by 0.23 percent to 26,894.23 points.
The difficult environment is not exactly conducive to stock purchases. At a central bank conference in Portugal, the President of the European Central Bank (ECB), Christine Lagarde, braced the markets for another interest rate hike in July. This is particularly inconvenient given the currently weak economic mood.
The Dax was led by the Zalando papers, which recovered further, with a price gain of 2.4 percent. Siemens Energy was also in demand again after the recent price slump as a result of withdrawn annual targets and rose by 2.3 percent.
Sartorius fallen
On the other hand, papers from the pharmaceutical and medical technology sectors were sold. Sartorius fell in the Dax by more than 5 percent to its lowest level since June after investors had recently been put off with a profit warning. Fresenius Medical Care (FMC) fell by 5.5 percent in the MDax. Reasons are bad news from the USA: An increase in the reimbursement of dialysis treatment costs as part of the state Medicare program turned out to be lower than experts had expected. The shares of FMC shareholder Fresenius fell 1.8 percent.
After a downgrade by Bankhaus Metzler, the shares of Carl Zeiss Meditec also fell by a good 5 percent. Gerresheimer were similarly weak. A profit warning from the US pharmacy chain Walgreens Boots Alliance further clouded sentiment in the sector in the afternoon.
Synlab, on the other hand, were outliers with a plus of 1.6 percent. The fact that the laboratory service provider sold its activities in Switzerland to the Australian company Sonic Healthcare was well received by the market.
According to the works council, Volkswagen is temporarily reducing the production of electric cars at its Emden plant due to weakening sales. Shares fell 1.7 percent.
ECB President signaled further rate hikes
The EuroStoxx 50, the leading index in the euro zone, closed 0.58 percent higher at 4305.26 points. More than 6 percent share price gain of the Internet investment holding Prosus had a large share. France’s Cac 40 rose 0.43 percent, while Britain’s FTSE 100 gained 0.1 percent. In New York, the Dow Jones Industrial recovered by around half a percent at the end of European trading.
The euro rose significantly against the US dollar to 1.0960 dollars. ECB President Christine Lagarde once again signaled another rate hike in the fight against high inflation. The European Central Bank set the reference rate at 1.0951 (Monday: 1.0918) US dollars. The dollar thus cost 0.9132 (0.9159) euros.
On the bond market, the current yield rose from 2.41 percent on the previous day to 2.42 percent. The Rex pension index increased by 0.07 percent to 125.26 points. The Bund future lost 0.52 percent to 134.11 points.
