The DAX opened on Thursday morning in the red. By 9:30 a.m. the index was trading around 25,200 points, roughly 0.3 % below yesterday’s closing level. The best‑performing stocks were Symrise, Fresenius and FMC, while the laggards were Airbus, RWE and BASF.
Thomas Altmann of QC Partners noted that optimism has come back to Wall Street: the S&P 500 finished up for the third straight day. Riding the wave of this fresh U.S. sentiment, the DAX has reclaimed the psychologically critical 25,000‑point threshold. Altmann added that it remains to be seen whether sufficient follow‑on buying lies above 25,000 points to push the benchmark toward a new record high.
The euro strengthened slightly on Thursday morning, trading at 1.1801 USD per unit, which implied an exchange rate of 0.8474 EUR per USD.
Oil prices also rose sharply. At around 9 a.m. German time, a barrel of Brent crude fetched $71.08, up $0.73-or 1.0 %-from the previous trading day’s close.