market report
Following gains at the start of the week, Germany’s leading index should also be in the red today. Favorable specs from the US were in play last night. However, the road to 16,000 points is still long.
According to pre-market signals, DAX should start trading on XETRA around 15,695. This equates to a 0.2% increase. Yesterday, the German stock market barometer closed up almost half a percent at 15,673.
American stock exchanges supported a consolidation in German stocks after prices slipped over the past week. The Dow Jones Standard Value index closed up 0.6% yesterday at 33,944. The tech-heavy Nasdaq rose 0.2% to 13,685. The S&P 500 rose 0.2% to 4,409.
So Wall Street braced for a rather unfavorable signal from the Fed. Federal Reserve (Fed) officials expressed support for the continuation of tightening policy yesterday. Cleveland Fed President Loretta Mester said: “In order to ensure that inflation is sustainable and quickly returns to 2%, I believe that the federal funds rate needs to be increased further from current levels.”
In Asia, prices also rose in the morning. Japan’s Nikkei rose 0.3% to 32,280. The broader Topix rose 0.1% to 2,246. The Shanghai Stock Exchange rose 0.3%. The Shanghai and Shenzhen major companies index rose 0.3%.
In the foreign exchange market, the euro regained its position at the $1.10 mark. The European common currency is trading at 1.1017 this morning, its highest level since May.
Oil prices also continued to rise after major producers Saudi Arabia and Russia recently announced further curbs on supply. In the morning, the price of a barrel of North Sea Brent crude oil was US$78, up about 0.5% from yesterday. The price of a troy ounce of gold edged up to $1929.
On the German stock market, the name of truck maker Daimler Trucks was in focus this morning. The group revised its forecast for this year last night. In 2023, the industrial business is expected to generate adjusted returns between 8.5% and 10.0% on sales of 5.4 to 56 billion euros. Sales so far are expected to be between 5.3 and 55 billion euros, for a return of between 7.5% and 9.0%. The background is a strong first quarter, strong sales in the second quarter, and the supply chain is stabilizing. In addition, Daimler Trucks announced a share buyback program.
Shareholder representatives were disappointed by the latest business development today, ahead of a general meeting of sluggish battery group Varta. Nikolaus Lutje of the German Securities Protection Association (DSW) said: “While there is hope, there is also greater disappointment.” As far as batteries are concerned, Varta is actually a company that keeps up with the times technologically. Lutje said the company has to get more out of this future theme. Faced with losses, Varta hopes to lay off staff.
In a collective bargaining dispute with online retailer Amazon, the Verdi union called for a warning strike at several sites in North Rhine-Westphalia from Tuesday to Thursday. Distribution centers in Dortmund, Werner and Rheinberg were affected, the union said. The reason for the warning strike is Amazon’s “Prime Day,” which begins on Tuesday. According to the news, strikes occurred in ten distribution centers in Germany.