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Surging oil prices and positive economic releases coming out of Germany have helped keep the DAX in positive territory today despite some volatility as the sentiment towards the result of today’s OPEC meeting keeps markets mildly schizophrenic. The DAX 30 is currently showing a gain of 0.36% for Wednesday. German retail sales figures for October demonstrated their fastest pick-up in more than five years, with a 2.4% increase on September. The country’s unemployment figures also dropped with an adjusted reading of 4.1%, down 0.1% on September.
One of the biggest winner on the DAX today has been chemicals company BASF, with the company turning around a fall which started on Monday by recovering losses with a 3,29% gain today. Materials, capital goods and services conglomerate Thyssenkrupp is also up today with a 2% gain. There has been recent speculation over a potential merger with Tata Steel. HeidelbergCement also takes a spot on the day-so-far’s leaderboard, having registered 1.14% gain. However, the big winner is industrial gases and engineering company Linde, which has leapt 5% after U.S. peer Praxair revived a $60 billion bid for the company. It was reported yesterday evening in U.S. media outlets that Praxair has approached Linde with the offer to reopen talks which broke down in September on disagreements on governance.
Lufthansa, which is suffering continued disruption and has cancelled close to 2000 flights as a result of industrial action by pilots over a pay dispute, is down again today, showing a 1.57% loss. Car makers are also down as South Korea announced it plans to ban the sale of some models produced by BMW, Porsche and Japan’s Nissan, over claims the companies falsified documents to ensure the vehicles adhered to rules considered to approve them as ‘road worthy’.
BMW is down 1.16%, with the fallout also seeming affecting DAX peers Daimler and Volkswagen, who have also recorded losses, of 1.13% and 0.61% respectively. Semiconductor manufacturer Infineon Technologies is also down, with a drop of 1.12% so far today.
