indexes in this article
FRANKFURT (dpa-AFX) – At the start of the shortened trading week before Easter, the Dax (DAX 40) is struggling to stabilize after Friday’s gains. In the first hour of trading on Monday, the leading German index fell by 1.01 percent to 14,140 points. The round mark of 14,000 points has endured. The downward trend, according to the chart technology analysts at HSBC, remains dominant.
The MDAX fell in early trading by 0.96 percent to 30,534 points. The Eurozone leading index EuroStoxx 50 (EURO STOXX 50) was 0.9 percent lower.
Technology stocks in particular came under selling pressure again in US trading on Friday. According to Credit Suisse, the tightening of monetary policy is further dampening investors’ willingness to take risks. Overall, however, the bank remains optimistic about equities – despite rising bond yields and thus more attractive investment alternatives. Another burden came from Asia in the morning: Chinese stock markets were under pressure there as economic concerns increased, especially in view of the Covid outbreaks.
The elections in France are causing further political uncertainty. In the neighboring country there will be a runoff election on April 24 between the liberal President Emmanuel Macron and the right-wing Marine Le Pen for the highest state office. If Le Pen were to win, the decades-long close cooperation between Berlin and Paris would become more difficult, as Le Pen is considered a Eurosceptic. However, the currency experts at Commerzbank noted as positive news in the morning that Macron had a clear lead over his challenger after the first round, which was not certain given the polls.
Reclassifications moved some values on the German stock market. Aixtron (AIXTRON SE), for example, gained 3.3 percent. Exane BNP Paribas upgraded the stocks of the semiconductor-focused equipment manufacturer to “Outperform”.
Papers from the media industry such as Ströer (Ströer SECo), ProSiebenSat.1 (ProSiebenSat1 Media SE) and RTL came under pressure. Analyst Lisa Yang from Goldman Sachs expressed skepticism about customers’ advertising budgets in the second half of the year and downgraded Ströer, ProSiebenSat.1 and RTL. The price reductions ranged from 1.2 to 3 percent.
The shares of the solar and wind farm operator ENCAVIS fell back after their recent rally with a minus of more than six percent. The Barcalys analysts downgraded the papers, a breather was announced. Investors took profits.
Rheinmetall (Rheinmetall) gained 2.7 percent. According to the company, the British Army will receive a further 100 Boxer wheeled armored vehicles. The additional vehicles are to be delivered from 2024. The basis is a contract from 2019, which includes 523 Boxer wheeled armored vehicles in different variants. In the middle of last week, the shares had reached a record high of almost 210 euros, but then lost some momentum. Rheinmetall is the beneficiary of the billion-euro offensive announced by the federal government in the Bundeswehr./ajx/jha/