The Dax experienced a slight decline at the start of the trading day on Monday. By 9:30 AM, the leading index was calculated at around 23,710 points, which is 0.2 percent lower than the previous Friday’s closing. The top performers on the list were Sartorius, BASF and Bayer, while Volkswagen, SAP and MTU were at the bottom.
According to Thomas Altmann from QC Partners, the stock markets are reacting to Moody’s downgrade of the US creditworthiness. The US dollar and stocks are falling, while the interest rates for long-term US government bonds are increasing. However, the overall impact is expected to be limited as Moody’s was the last of the three major rating agencies to downgrade the US credit rating and the shock experienced in 2011 due to S&P’s downgrade is not anticipated to occur this time.
The Dax has recently witnessed a series of positive weeks, with gains in each of the last five weeks. Altmann suggests that this streak could come to an end this week, but it would require new and preferably long-term-oriented buyers to continue driving the market higher.
The European common currency, the Euro, was stronger on Monday morning, with one Euro costing 1.1218 US dollars and one US dollar equating to 0.8914 Euros.
Additionally, the oil price experienced a decline, with a barrel of Brent crude from the North Sea trading at 65.13 US dollars at 9 AM German time, which is a decrease of 28 cents or 0.4 percent from the previous day’s closing.