market report
AI profiteer Nvidia has once again exceeded market expectations. The DAX now has a good chance of reaching a new record high. Good guidelines are also coming from Tokyo – the Nikkei is at an all-time high after almost 35 years.
The record high in the DAX is less than a week old: just last Friday, the German stock market barometer set a new record at 17,198 points. But pre-market indications suggest that it could already be exceeded today.
The broker IG rose to 17,228 points in early trading; IG currently estimates the DAX at 17,212 points – an increase of 0.5 percent compared to yesterday’s closing price. If the DAX actually sets a new record high in regular XETRA trading, it would send one of the best buy signals that technical analysis has to offer.
Tailwind for the DAX comes from the balance sheet of the chip company Nvidia: Thanks to the ongoing boom in artificial intelligence (AI), Nvidia reported quarterly sales above market expectations for the sixth time in a row after the US stock market closed yesterday evening. At $22.1 billion, revenue was more than three times higher than a year earlier. For the current quarter, the company forecast consolidated sales of $24 billion, plus or minus two percent.
The strong figures and the optimistic outlook from Nvidia are encouraging market players in their AI euphoria: prices on the stock markets have already risen in the past few weeks due to the hope of good business with the technology.
In the run-up to Nvidia’s eagerly awaited figures, the US stock markets had not found a common direction by midweek. The Dow Jones index of standard stocks closed 0.1 percent higher at 38,612 points. The technology-heavy Nasdaq, on the other hand, fell 0.3 percent to 15,580 points. The broad S&P 500 gained 0.1 percent to 4,981 jobs.
The publication of the interest rate minutes by the US Federal Reserve (Fed) largely left investors on the stock markets unaffected. The Fed does not want to rush anything with regard to the interest rate turnaround planned for this year. This emerges from the minutes of the meeting at the end of January. Speculation continues on the futures markets that the interest rate turnaround will not come before June.
Meanwhile, strong guidelines for the DAX are coming from Japan: almost three and a half decades after the speculative bubble on the Japanese stock market burst, the Nikkei 225 reached a record high this morning. The country’s leading index ended trading with an increase of 2.2 percent to 39,098 points. In addition to the Nvidia figures, the weak Japanese yen, which benefits the country’s export economy, has also been providing a tailwind for some time.
Among the individual stocks in the DAX, the focus today is on Mercedes-Benz and Heidelberg Materials with quarterly figures. Mercedes-Benz announced that evening that it would purchase additional shares on the market for up to three billion euros. The program is scheduled to start immediately after the completion of the share buybacks announced in February 2023 and are still ongoing and to be completed by July 7, 2025.
Heidelberg Materials is also launching a new share buyback program worth 1.2 billion euros – and also reported a record year this morning: In 2023, sales climbed slightly year-on-year to almost 21.2 billion euros. The bottom line was that shareholders received a profit of around 1.9 billion euros, compared to just under 1.6 billion euros in the previous year.
European aircraft manufacturer Airbus is facing delays in introducing an ultra-long-haul version of its A350-1000 jet due to problems with the auxiliary tank. “The regulator has asked us to redesign the center tank of the ultra-long-haul aircraft for Sunrise,” said Christian Scherer, head of the Airbus commercial aircraft division, referring to the “Project Sunrise” flights from Sydney to London. Qantas Airways announced that the start of the non-stop connection would be postponed by around half a year to mid-2026.
The software company SAP wants to increase its dividend. An amount of 2.20 euros will be proposed at the general meeting for the 2023 financial year, as the company announced late in the evening. That’s 15 cents more than a year earlier and more than analysts expected. The payout ratio would therefore be 43.1 percent, it said.
On the other hand, MTU shareholders will initially have to be content with a lower dividend due to the expensive material defect in the engines of many Airbus jets. For 2023, they should receive 2.00 euros per share certificate, as the engine manufacturer surprisingly announced in the evening. MTU had paid out 3.20 euros for 2022.
The electric car manufacturer Rivian Automotive is cutting staff due to stuttering demand and temporary factory closures. A total of ten percent of jobs will be lost, the Tesla rival announced. Rivian plans to produce 57,000 vehicles in the current fiscal year, well below the 81,700 units expected by analysts. Rivian shares fell 17 percent in after-hours US trading.