Investors withdrew in droves from the stock markets on Monday because of a possible setback to the global economic recovery. The rapid spread of the particularly contagious Delta variant of the coronavirus could delay the easing of pandemic restrictions in some regions, said investment strategist Ian Williams of brokerage house Peel Hunt. The Dax expanded its recent losses in the course of trading significantly and dropped by 2.6 percent to 15,133 points by the end of trading.
Shares from the travel and leisure sector suffered in particular from the renewed increased nervousness of investors across Europe. The European industry index fell by 3.5 percent. New corona-related restrictions in international air traffic would hit this sector particularly hard. The papers of the “Aida” shipping company Carnival Cruise came in last with a minus of more than eight percent. In this country, the papers of the airline Lufthansa and the shares of the aircraft manufacturer Airbus lost 2.9 and 6.3 percent respectively in the M-Dax. In the Dax, the shares of the engine manufacturer MTU were the weakest with a minus of six percent. The papers of the tourism group Tui lost 4.3 percent of their value.
RWE shareholders had to accept losses of 3.8 percent. The flood disaster in North Rhine-Westphalia hit the Weisweiler coal-fired power station and other locations of the energy company. RWE estimated the damage to be in the mid double-digit million range. In the S-Dax, profit-taking also weighed on the papers of Adva Optical, which lost 8.5 percent. Last Friday, the network equipment supplier’s shares hit a 20-year high. The US stock exchanges also fell significantly. The Dow Jones lost 2.1 percent to 33,962 points. Shares in financial corporations Citigroup, Bank of America, JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs fell between 2.6 and 3.3 percent. Investors worried about the income from the classic lending business, as the yields on ten-year US government bonds have fallen to a five-month low and the banks’ lending rates are based on this.