The new coronavirus variant, which was initially discovered in South Africa, caused prices to slide on the stock exchanges around the world at the end of the week. “We don’t know much about them yet,” said Roland Kaloyan, chief investment strategist at Bank Société Générale. “But if the new variant is serious, it could change the economic outlook.” Of the Dax slipped by 4.2 percent to 15,257 meters by the close of trading on Friday. “If the new variant turns out to be very aggressive, this could go hand in hand with the closure of international air traffic, as with the first Corona wave,” warned investment strategist Jürgen Molnar from the brokerage firm Robo-Markets. Against this background, the index of European travel and tourism values collapsed by 8.7 percent. In the M-Dax average index, the Lufthansa shares, which were already burdened by the pandemic, slipped to a record low – at the end of trading they were still in the red with just under 13 percent. For shares in the aircraft manufacturer Airbus, it fell by 11.6 percent at the end of the Dax, followed by the shares of the engine manufacturer MTU with minus 11.3 percent. In the M-Dax, Fraport papers lost 11.5 percent of their value.
In contrast, investors bravely took hold of suppliers of coronavirus vaccines. The shares of Biontech traded in Frankfurt rose by 18.6 percent. In the USA, the titles of their development partner Pfizer won a good six percent.
Also in demand were the values considered to be Corona winners: shares of the cook box mail order company Hellofresh, the food delivery service Delivery Hero, the online retailer Zalando and the pharmaceutical and chemical group Merck KGaA rose as Dax favorites by up to five percent. Papers from the laboratory equipment supplier Sartorius rose by 4.2 percent.
Sales rumors meanwhile caused Software AG shares to jump 9.4 percent. According to the Bloomberg news agency, the software provider is reviewing strategic options, including selling itself.
On Wall Street, too, prices slipped after the Thanksgiving holiday. The leading index recorded in a shortened trade on “Black Friday” Dow Jones Loss of 2.5 percent to 34 899 points.