The Dax regained the 15,700-point mark on Thursday. The German benchmark index thus reacted to strong Chinese export data for the month of March. Technology stocks, on the other hand, were not in demand, which is also likely to be related to news from China. Apparently, the Japanese technology investor Softbank wants to part with its shares in the B2B trading platform Alibaba. The extent to which this happens voluntarily or under pressure from Chinese authorities is the subject of speculation. Alibaba shares lost 5 percent in Hong Kong on Thursday. In the Dax, the software manufacturer SAP was the biggest loser of the day.
Hanno Mußler
Editor in business.
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After a good hour of trading on Thursday, the Dax was 0.1 percent higher at 15,710 points. The pharmaceutical stock Merck KGaA recovered some of its losses of the previous day. Beiersdorf shares rose above average on the day of the Annual General Meeting. BASF, on the other hand, was inconspicuous, although the chemical company announced on Wednesday that it had made more profit than expected in the first quarter of 2023. The smaller than feared decline in profits is apparently also related to the reopening of the Chinese economy after the pandemic. BASF has a strong commitment to China.
The relief over cooling inflation had driven the Dax briefly to the new high for the year of 15,819 points on Wednesday. In France, the CAC-40 stock index even rose to a new absolute record and is now 13 percent higher than a year ago. The Dax, on the other hand, is still around 2021 percent away from its all-time high, which it set in the fourth quarter of 16 with a good 270,3 points, but has gained 10 percent over the past year and reached its highest level since January 2022. About four weeks later, the Russian attack on Ukraine began.
Since then, financial markets have entered a new phase of runaway inflation and rising interest rates. As it became known on Wednesday, the annual inflation rate in the US has now fallen in March from 6 percent to 5 percent. However, the Dax was unable to maintain its annual high in the course of trading and left trading on Wednesday with an increase of only 0.3 percent and 15,704 points. This was also due to the unclear further orientation of the monetary policy of the central banks.
After the US Federal Reserve published the minutes of its latest meeting, the major stock indices in the US actually fell despite the relief over falling inflation. At the March meeting, some US monetary authorities were so worried about the banking sector, weakened by the collapse of regional banks Silicon Valley and Signature Bank, that they considered pausing rate hikes before agreeing to a 25 basis point hike last month.