A weak Wall Street spoiled the start of the week for the German stock market on Monday. At times it looked like the recent series of losses was coming to an end, but with the start of the US stock market all gains in the Dax melted away again. After three weak trading days in a row, the leading German index ended trading in the evening unchanged at 12,272.94 points.
The strong price fluctuations are an indication of the continued tense mood on the market. In early trading, interest rate fears in particular had weighed on prices in this country, because after the robust US labor market report before the weekend, investors’ hopes of a less aggressive US monetary policy evaporated for the time being. The bombing of a number of cities in the Ukraine by Russia had also had a negative impact.
According to stockbrokers, bargain hunters ventured during the day and at times drove the Dax back to over the 12,400 mark. However, the markets in Germany were once again unable to escape the negative pull of the US stock exchanges.
The MDax of medium-sized companies also lost its daily plus again, saying goodbye to the end of the day with a minus of 0.24 percent at 22,476.26 points.
On the corporate side, stocks from the energy-intensive chemical and steel sectors were in particularly high demand. Traders attributed the price gains to the proposals of the Gas and Heat Expert Commission, which are likely to be of great importance for heavy industrial energy consumers. At the top of the Dax, Covestro rose by 8.2 percent, BASF climbed by more than six percent.
In the MDax, Evonik, Lanxess, Wacker Chemie and Thyssenkrupp took the top spots with premiums of up to 5.4 percent. The leader was the fertilizer company K S with a premium of around 5.9 percent. In the SDax small-cap index, Salzgitter took first place with a good 5.7 percent plus.
Deutsche Post surprised with better-than-expected preliminary numbers and raised the prospect of raising its profit target for the year. The papers ended trading up 4.8 percent. The results are particularly pleasing because US competitor Fedex unsettled the market a few weeks ago with a “violent” profit warning, according to analyst Dirk Schlamp from DZ Bank.
After the recent weakness, hopes of further bidders drove the price of Vantage Towers up by around three and a half percent. According to a report by the Bloomberg news agency citing insiders, American Tower and Cellnex are said to be considering entering the bidding process for the Vodafone subsidiary. The British are therefore already expecting the first offers for the radio mast operator this week.
A canceled buy recommendation from Jefferies also pushed the papers of the dialysis provider Fresenius Medical Care (FMC) in the Dax to their lowest level since spring 2009. The papers closed around three percent in the red. Shares in the diagnostics specialist Qiagen slipped by 4.3 percent, here the investment bank Oddo BHF lowered the thumb. Both papers were among the weakest Dax values.
The week began at a lower level than here in Europe, where investors’ continued concerns about rising interest rates and renewed fears about the Ukraine conflict dominated. The Eurozone leading index EuroStoxx 50 lost 0.55 percent to 3356.88 points. The leading stock exchanges in Paris and London recorded similarly high losses. The New York leading index Dow Jones Industrial was able to recover somewhat by the end of trading in Europe and was still down slightly by 0.2 percent.
The euro was last listed at 0.9698 US dollars. The European Central Bank (ECB) had previously set the reference rate at $0.9697 (Friday: $0.9797). The dollar had thus cost 1.0313 (1.0207) euros.
On the bond market, the current yield rose from 2.03 percent on Friday to 2.05 percent. The Rex pension index increased by 0.10 percent to 128.09 points. The Bund future fell by 1.17 percent to 136.07 points.