DAX Up Marginally; Fresenius Medical Care Rises On Buy-back Announcement

(RTTNews) - German stocks gained marginal ground in positive territory Friday morning. Data showing an unexpected growth in the nation's industrial output in the month of November aided sentiment. Investors remained a bit cautious, looking ahead to U.S. non-farm payroll data, due later in the day.

The benchmark DAX was up 26.37 points or 0.1% at 25,152.28 about a quarter before noon.

Volkswagen rallied nearly 2.5%. Siemens Energy and Adidas gained 2.2% and 2.1%, respectively.

Fresenius Medical Care moved up almost 2% after announcing the continuation of its €1 billion share buyback program, with a second tranche of €415 million running from January 12 to May 8.

Beiersdorf, Henkel, Zalando, Mercedes-Benz, Infineon Technologies and SAP gained 1.4 to 1.8%.

Rheinmetall gained notable ground in positive territory after the company announced that it has bagging a contract worth EUR 118.5 million.

Scout24, BASF, Porsche Automobil Holding, Brenntag, BMW, Siemens Healthineers, Continental and Merck also moved notably higher.

Commerzbank tumbled 2.7%. Hannover Rueck and Allianz both lost more than 2%. Bayer, Munich RE, Deutsche Boerse, MTU Aero Engies, Deutsche Bank and RWE drifted down by 1 to 1.7%.

On the economic front, Germany's industrial production grew unexpectedly in November, while exports registered its biggest fall since May 2024, official data revealed on Friday.

Industrial output climbed 0.8% month-on-month in November, Destatis reported. Although it was weaker than the 2% increase in October, the increase confounded economists' forecast of 0.6% fall.

The positive development was mainly attributable to the growth in the automotive industry and in the manufacture of machinery and equipment, data showed.

On a yearly basis, industrial production logged a growth of 0.8% after rising 1% in October.

Another report from Destatis showed that exports declined the most since May 2024, while imports rebounded more-than-expected from October.

Exports decreased 2.5% in November, reversing prior month's 0.3% increase. Shipments were forecast to remain flat. Meanwhile, imports grew 0.8%, in contrast to the 1.5% fall in October. Economists were expecting a 0.2% gain.

Consequently, the trade balance showed a surplus of EUR 13.1 billion compared to EUR 17.2 billion surplus in October.