Investors on the German stock market have overcome the initial shock of the Russian attack on Ukraine for the time being. After initially only slight price gains, the dax embarked on a strong recovery in afternoon trade, closing 3.7 percent higher at 14,567 points. The day before, the leading German index had temporarily collapsed to its lowest level in a year. In the course of the turbulent week, the leading index lost a little more than three percent. Moscow’s leading index RTS even posted a record price jump of 30 percent at times, making up for some of its recent losses.
Speculations that the fighting would end soon helped the stock markets rise. According to reports, Russia is ready for talks with Ukraine. The waiver of sanctions on Russian oil and gas supplies and the country’s exclusion from the Swift payments network also provided some relief from an investor perspective, said Neil Wilson, chief analyst at online broker Markets.
com. Financial stocks recovered from their heavy losses. The European sector index rose by more than three percent. Deutsche Bank rose by 5.5 percent in the Dax top group. Armaments values were also in demand throughout Europe. The invasion could lead to higher defense spending, wrote JP Morgan Cazenove analyst David Perry. Rheinmetall, Thales and BAE Systems shares rose by up to seven percent. The shares of VW and the holding company Porsche went up again, because the highest committees of the VW group approved an IPO of the sports car subsidiary Porsche AG. Porsche SE and VW were among the biggest winners in the Dax with plus 3.5 and 5.7 percent. In the M-Dax, the papers of the mobile phone provider Freenet gained 7.7 percent according to the quarterly figures presented the evening before. Jefferies analyst Ulrich Rathe highlighted Freenet’s strong fourth-quarter profitability and optimistic outlook.
In New York he went Dow Jones two and a half percent higher from the trade. Foot Locker shares suffered a drastic price drop of almost 30 percent. The sports shoe seller had given a gloomy outlook for the current year.