The Dax index moved further into the red by midday, having already had a weak start and gave back a significant portion of the gains from the previous day. By 12:30 pm, the leading index was calculated at around 22,675 points, 2.0 percent below the previous day’s closing level.
Only a few stocks were trading against the trend in the positive, with the strongest performers being Rheinmetall, Eon and MTU. The largest declines, on the other hand, were seen in the papers of Continental, FMC and Daimler Truck. Continental had presented new business figures in the morning, which apparently did not go down well with investors. The auto supplier intends to continue its cost-cutting measures.
The European common currency was stronger by midday: one euro was worth 1.0516 US dollars and one dollar was available for 0.9509 euros.
The oil price, meanwhile, fell: a barrel of the North Sea’s Brent variety cost around 70.91 US dollars at 12 pm German time, which is 71 cents or 1.0 percent less than at the close of the previous trading day.