At the start of August, the German stock market largely continued on its recovery course from July. Investors rely on solid quarterly reports from companies, said market expert Andreas Lipkow from Comdirect Bank. In addition, they built on the fact that the macroeconomic data situation is cooling off somewhat. This would relieve the central banks of the pressure to raise interest rates further and the stock markets would have more upside potential again.
The German leading index Dax rose to its highest level since mid-June in trading on Monday, but suffered in late trading from the weakening Wall Street and went 0.03 percent lower at 13,479.63 points from trading. On Friday, the leading index closed up 1.5 percent and ended July with a gain of around 5.5 percent. This was the strongest July rise in six years, although June had also fallen sharply.
The MDax of medium-sized companies gained 0.23 percent on Monday to 27,427.93 points. It had skyrocketed by around six percent in July. At the beginning of the week, the SDax small-cap index was up 0.57 percent.
"The fact that prices have apparently gained a foothold despite the unresolved problems such as the looming energy crisis in Germany and the ongoing war in Ukraine is a strong signal and gives hope for a better second half of the year after the first six disastrous months on the stock market. It seems as if everything negative has been priced in and the upswing would have already begun," commented capital market strategist Jürgen Molnar from the trading house Robomarkets.
Among the individual values, Varta shares were in focus after a profit warning. The ongoing pressure on the operating business caused the battery manufacturer's once celebrated papers to fall by three and a half percent among the biggest losers in the MDax. They halted their recent recovery and resumed their month-long downtrend. Varta had lowered its targets for the year due to the gloomier economic outlook and high raw material, energy and transport costs.
A recommendation by the British bank HSBC at the top of the MDax helped Rheinmetall's shares to rise by around five percent. Risks for the car division had made Rheinmetall look a little more cautious about sales development in the past week. The driver is still the armaments business in view of the turning point proclaimed by the federal government after Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
In the SDax, the prospect of further share purchases by the major investor EQT drove Suse's shares up by a good four percent. So far, EQT already holds more than three quarters of the Suse shares. Strong business in America and Asia makes the automotive and industrial supplier Stabilus more optimistic for the current fiscal year. The share certificates rose by more than two percent.
The Eurozone leading index EuroStoxx 50 fell by 0.04 percent to 3706.62 points, the national indices in Paris and London closed somewhat more clearly in the red. In New York, the leading US index Dow Jones Industrial recorded only moderate gains at the end of trading in Europe.
The euro rose and was last listed at 1.0275 US dollars: the European Central Bank had previously set the reference rate at 1.0233 (Friday: 1.0198) dollars. The dollar thus cost 0.9772 (0.9806) euros.
On the bond market, the current yield on German government bonds fell from 0.77 percent on Friday to 0.72 percent. The Rex pension index rose by 0.27 percent to 137.51 points. The Bund future gained 0.58 percent to 158.48 points.
