Investors in the European stock markets did not venture too big leaps on Wednesday before the new information from the US Federal Reserve (Fed) on monetary policy expected in the evening. Surprisingly good company figures nevertheless resulted in price movements. the Dax was 0.3 percent higher at 15 570 points at the close of trading. “Because of the uncertain economic environment, some investors seem to see strong numbers as an opportunity for profit-taking,” said analyst Pierre Veyret of brokerage firm Activ Trades.
Higher prices and a significant recovery in demand helped BASF to make a billion profit in the second quarter. The chemical company posted a net profit of 1.65 billion euros after a loss of 878 million euros had been incurred in the same period of the previous year due to high depreciation. Nevertheless, the BASF share recently fell by one percent. The papers of the Deutsche Börse lost 2.1 percent of their value after the presentation of business figures as the weakest Dax value. Analyst Peter Richardson from the private bank Berenberg classified the quarter as a slight disappointment.
In the M-Dax, Telefonica Deutschland’s paper slipped 7.5 percent. Nevertheless, analysts were mostly positive about the quarterly figures. In the S-Dax, the shares of Deutsche Pfandbriefbank led the winners after raising the annual forecast with a plus of 6.5 percent. For the titles of the Metro retail group and the radiation and medical technology company Eckert & Ziegler, the figures rose by 1.7 and 6.2 percent, respectively, according to the quarterly figures.
On Wall Street, the results of the Fed meeting announced that evening had little impact. As expected, the US Federal Reserve will initially maintain its loose monetary policy. The leading index Dow Jones ended the trading session 0.4 percent lower. Some support for the US stock exchanges came from the quarterly figures of Google parent company Alphabet. This increased sales in the past quarter year-on-year by 62 percent to around 61.9 billion dollars. The profit jumped to a good 18.5 billion dollars. Alphabet stock rose at times by 4.8 percent to a record high of $ 2,765.94.