DAX Down Sharply As Stocks Tumble On Tariff Worries

(RTTNews) - German stocks are down sharply around noon on Monday, ahead of the Trump Administration's "reciprocal tariffs," that will come into force this week.

The details of the tariffs are not clear as yet, but the U.S. President had stated in an interview on Sunday that he will likely impose duties on "essentially all" of the U.S.'s trading partners.

Trump's statement has stoked worries that a global trade war could lead to recession.

The benchmark DAX is down 391.85 points or 1.75% at 22,064.05 a few minutes past noon.

Siemens Energy is declining 4.7%. BASF, Continental, Volkswagen, Porsche, Brenntag, Porsche Automobil Holding, Infineon Technologies, Commerzbank, Sartorius, Mercedes-Benz and BMW are down 3 to 4%.

Deutsche Bank, Daimler Truck Holding, Zalando, Merck, Bayer, Heidelberg Materials, Fresenius Healthcare, Fresenius, Siemens Healthineers, Siemens and Deutsche Post are also down sharply.

In economic news, Germany's import prices grew at the fastest pace in more than two years in February, data from Destatis showed. Import prices rose 3.6% on a yearly basis in February, following January's 3.1% increase.

On a monthly basis, import prices moved up 0.3% but slower than the 1.1% increase seen in January. This was the weakest growth in the current five-month sequence of expansion.

Further, data showed that export prices were 2.5% higher than in the same period last year, marking the largest annual increase recorded since March 2023. This followed January's 2.4% increase.

Month-on-month, export price inflation softened to 0.3% from 0.7% in January.

A separate data showed retail sales increased 0.8% in February, slightly faster than the revised 0.7% rise in January. Economists had forecast sales to remain flat after January's initially estimated growth of 0.2%.

On a yearly basis, retail sales growth improved to 4.9% from 3.3% in the previous month.