market report
The DAX is likely to start the last trading day of what has so far been an extremely successful stock market week with slight losses. However, taking profits would not be surprising given the recent strong price gains.
Pre-market indications suggest that the DAX is likely to start the last trading day of the week with price losses. The broker IG currently estimates German standard values 0.4 percent lower at 16,846 points. However, after the recent price gains, profit-taking would not come as a surprise.
The DAX has had a strong week so far: from its low of 16,513 points on Monday, it rose by over 400 points. Yesterday, after taking profits in early afternoon trading, it was able to turn positive again in the afternoon. The DAX therefore remains within sight of its high from the beginning of January at 16,963 points and the record high just above it at 17,003 points.
In any case, the European Central Bank (ECB) didn’t throw any obstacles in the way of the DAX bulls yesterday. Unsurprisingly, it left interest rates unchanged. According to numerous economists, the monetary authorities led by ECB boss Christine Lagarde yesterday left the door open to a first interest rate cut in April. “For the first time, the ECB could end up cutting interest rates earlier than the FED,” says Johannes Mayr, chief economist at Eyb & Wallwitz.
But the ECB is in no hurry – Ann-Katrin Petersen, capital market strategist at the world’s largest asset manager Blackrock, is convinced of that. “Markets will have to be patient until the ECB is convinced that the prospect of price stability is guaranteed.”
There was also strong economic data from the USA yesterday afternoon: the gross domestic product (GDP) rose by 3.3 percent from October to December on an annual basis – and thus significantly more than expected.
Hopes for a stable US economy despite high interest rates led to cautious optimism on Wall Street. The Dow Jones index of standard stocks closed 0.6 percent higher at 38,049 points. The technology-heavy Nasdaq advanced 0.2 percent to 15,510 points. The broad S&P 500 gained 0.5 percent to 4,894 points.
Despite the good guidance from Wall Street, the Japanese stock market continued to decline in the morning. The leading Nikkei index, which includes 225 values, closed 1.3 percent lower at 35,751 points, moving further away from its 34-year high. The Shanghai stock exchange, on the other hand, is currently trading 0.1 percent higher. A package of measures planned by China to stabilize the market continues to give skeptical investors some hope.
The euro is hardly moving in Asian currency trading and is oscillating sideways at $1.0843. The gold price is slightly higher in the morning, 2,023 are paid for the troy ounce of gold, 0.1 percent more.
Sartorius shares are attracting attention in the DAX this morning. After the Corona boom of previous years, the laboratory and pharmaceutical supplier felt weak demand from customers in 2023. Net profit fell by a good 48 percent to 338.5 million euros. The Board of Directors recently promised profitable growth again this year.
Pilots and flight attendants at the Lufthansa subsidiary Discover Airlines want to go on strike together today. The company has already returned ten flights that it was supposed to fly for the parent company Lufthansa in Munich. Lufthansa wanted to present the connections differently. The consequences for your own Discover flights from Frankfurt were recently unclear.
Thanks to its modern 5G network, T-Mobile US has once again left the competition behind in terms of customer growth. This trend will continue to accelerate in the coming months, predicted the US mobile communications subsidiary of Deutsche Telekom. The number of contract customers is expected to increase by five to 5.5 million in 2024. Analysts had only expected half as much.
The Stuttgart-based IT service provider GFT Technologies is strengthening its business in Latin America with an acquisition in Colombia. The company, which specializes in the financial sector, is buying the Colombian Sophos Solutions from the financial investor Advent for $95 million. Sophos specializes in the digitization of large banks in North and South America.
Semiconductor giant Intel has disappointed Wall Street with its outlook for the current quarter. The stock fell almost eleven percent in after-hours trading last night. The company forecast sales of between $12.2 billion and $13.2 billion and earnings of $0.13 per share. Intel is not benefiting from the boom in artificial intelligence (AI) because the company does not offer any competitive special chips for this technology.
In the future, iPhone users in the European Union will not only be able to install applications from Apple’s App Store, but also use alternative app marketplaces. At the same time, the iPhone company allows competing payment methods and alternative technologies for web browsers that were previously not permitted by Apple due to security risks. With the changes, Apple is reacting to the legal requirements of the new EU law for digital markets (Digital Markets Act/DMA).
The billion-dollar deals through which tech giants have gained access to new AI technology from start-ups are being targeted by US regulators. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) requested more information about such agreements from Microsoft, Amazon and Google parent Alphabet. Among other things, they want to investigate the question of whether investments by “dominant companies” could distort competition, explained FTC boss Lina Khan.