The German stock index, the DAX, failed to find a clear direction on Friday after a rather muted opening. By around 12:30 pm, the benchmark had been calculated at roughly 25,310 points, about 0.1 % above the previous day’s closing level.
Growth was supported by shares of Deutsche Telekom, Scout24 and Siemens Energy, while stocks in the red fell: Infineon, MTU and BASF saw declines. BASF had recently announced a significant downturn in earnings and now expects another uneven year marked by a larger savings programme.
“Before the weekend, the DAX benefits from a mix of short‑covering and selective position‑builds in defensive sector stocks” said Andreas Lipkow, chief market analyst at CMC Markets. “This trend has already been observable over the last few trading days. Stocks that fell during the week were later repurchased, and this rotation has kept the DAX at about 25,000 points for several weeks”.
Lipkow added that, however, no true market breadth seems to be forming. On Friday, only about half of the stocks were on the upside. Macro‑economic impulses were lacking to lift the DAX above its ceiling and set it back on a record‑chasing trajectory.
“On the corporate side, cautious forecasts-particularly for cyclical companies-disappoint investors” he noted. “Currently no manager is looking overly optimistic; this was clearly visible in BASF’s earnings presentation today. These factors make the upcoming German consumer‑price data particularly interesting. Meanwhile, the latest figures from France and Spain have again edged downward”.
“Largely, the DAX’s technical picture looks reasonably good and could signal a continuation of the upward move if fundamentals support it. However the market may only start chasing records after the weekend. Today there remain too many ad‑hoc risks, especially around US tariffs and the Iran‑US conflict, where unpleasant news could surface at any time” Lipkow cautioned.
On Friday afternoon, the euro strengthened slightly, trading at 1.1802 USD, which meant one dollar could be obtained for 0.8473 EUR.
Gold fell marginally to $5,174 per fine ounce – a 0.1 % decline – translating to €140.94 per gram.
Oil rose noticeably: one barrel of North Sea Brent crude was priced at $72.06 by 12 pm German time, up 1.9 % from the previous day’s closing price.