In a cautious trading session this Friday morning, German stocks are experiencing a slight uptick as investors assess the latest retail sales and unemployment figures, while anticipating the consumer price inflation data to be released later today.
The DAX index is making gains, currently hovering near record levels with an increase of 34.36 points or 0.16%, standing at 21,764.94.
Destatis has reported that German retail sales decreased by 1.6% on a month-over-month basis in December 2024, following a downward revision of a 0.1% decline in the previous month. On an annual basis, retail sales increased by 1.8% in December; however, this fell short of the anticipated 2.5% rise. In November, retail sales had similarly shown a downwardly revised annual growth of 2.9%.
The labor force survey results indicate that 1.44 million individuals were unemployed in December 2024, marking an increase of 129,000, or 9.9%, compared to December 2023. This has pushed the unemployment rate up to 3.2% from 2.9% in the previous year. Month-over-month, the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate held steady at 3.4% in December 2024.
Forecasts for consumer price inflation suggest it remains steady at 2.6%, identical to the previous December's figure.
Within the market, stocks such as Sartorius, Daimler Truck Holding, Continental, Merck, Vonovia, and BASF are registering declines between 0.8% and 1%. Meanwhile, Adidas and BMW are experiencing slight losses.
On the gaining side, Siemens Energy and MTU Aero Engines are showing nearly 1% increases. RWE is up by 0.8%, and Deutsche Bank, Infineon, Symrise, Deutsche Post, Commerzbank, and Beiersdorf are advancing within a range of 0.3% to 0.7%.
Among mid-cap stocks, HelloFresh and Delivery Hero are climbing by 2.5% and 2.2%, respectively. Hugo Boss is up nearly 2%, with Hensoldt rising by 1.8%.
