The mood on the German stock market remained good on the second trading day of the year. “Investors continue to rely on a foreseeable economic recovery in China and the euro area,” commented market expert Andreas Lipkow. The leading index, the Dax, rose by 0.80 percent on Tuesday to 14,181.67 points, clearly holding its own above the 14,000-point mark that had received much attention recently. The MDax for medium-sized stocks rose by 1.74 percent to 25,917.57 points.
The purchasing managers’ index published in the morning by the Chinese business magazine “Caixin” for December was slightly better than expected. The focus was also on inflation data from Germany. With the provisional consumer prices for December, “the suspicion that the high point of inflation is behind us has become a certainty,” commented economist Jens-Oliver Niklasch from the Landesbank Baden-Württemberg. However, inflation is still “unacceptably high” and the decline is at least partly due to fiscal policy measures to dampen the rise in energy prices.
Among the German individual values, Dax leader Brenntag stood out positively with a plus of 4.8 percent. After public criticism from a shareholder, the chemicals trader decided not to take over its US competitor Univar Solutions. This brought relief to the anxious Brenntag investors. A trader said that with the canceled plans, the risk of a capital increase was off the table, and the shares were also cheaper than those of industry rivals.
Some of the interest-rate-sensitive real estate and online stocks that were among the biggest losers in 2022 continued their recovery on the second trading day of the new year. After the announcement of the latest inflation data from Germany, they benefited particularly strongly from hopes of a easing of inflationary pressure, to combat which the European Central Bank (ECB) and other major central banks had raised key interest rates significantly.
In the Dax, the real estate group Vonovia and the online retailer Zalando were among the better values with gains of 1.8 and 2.9 percent respectively. The cooking box supplier Hellofresh and the food delivery service Delivery Hero recorded increases of 9.4 and 3.7 percent respectively in the MDax. TAG Immobilien was up 3.1 percent. The online used car dealer Auto1, which is listed in the SDax small-cap index, recovered by 5.5 percent.
RWE shares, which did well in 2022, came under pressure on Tuesday and fell by 4.7 percent at the end of the Dax. The sector stocks, which are considered quite defensive, were hardly in demand across Europe either.
The Eurozone leading index EuroStoxx 50 rose by 0.68 percent to 3882.29 points. France’s Cac 40 rose slightly less sharply, while London’s FTSE 100 rose 1.4 percent after a holiday break. The US leading index Dow Jones Industrial fell by 0.7 percent at the end of European trading. There was also no action in New York on Monday.
The euro lost significantly after the inflation data. The ECB set the reference rate at 1.0545 (Monday: 1.0683) dollars. The dollar thus cost 0.9483 (0.9361) euros. On the bond market, the current yield fell from 2.47 percent on the previous day to 2.35 percent. The Rex pension index rose by 0.86 percent to 125.80 points. The Bund future gained 0.54 percent to 135.16 points.
