DAX Up Nearly 1% Around Noon; Delivery Hero Up Sharply

(RTTNews) - German stocks are up firmly in positive territory around noon on Friday, lifting the benchmark DAX to a near 7-week high.

The mood in the market is a bit bullish amid optimism about an end to the U.S.-Iran conflict sometime soon. According to reports, peace talks between the warring nations are likely to resume this weekend.

The DAX was up 213.78 points or 0.89% at 24,364.32 a little while ago.

SAP climbed 3.75%. Deutsche Boerse gained 2.7% and Scout24 moved up 2%. Beiersdorf, Deutsche Telekom and Vonovia gained 1.5%, 1.4% and 1.2%, respectively.

Zalando, Symrise, Merck, MTU Aero Engines, Daimler Truck Holding, Infineon Technologies, Henkel, Hannover RE, Adidas, Rheinmetall and Munich RE posted moderate gains.

Delivery Hero shares jumped 8.5% as Uber agreed to buy an additional 4.5% stake in the German food delivery business.

Mercedes-Benz drifted down more than 4%. RWE shed 2.2% and E.ON slid 1.4%, while Bayer, Heidelberg Materials, Fresenius, Siemens Energy and Brenntag lost 0.6%-1%.

Train maker Alstom plummeted 30% after withdrawing its medium-term forecast. Despite recovering from the day's low, the stock was down more than 16% a little while ago.

In economic news, Eurozone exports decreased for the second straight month in February, data from Eurostat showed. Exports decreased 6.7% year-on-year in February, slower than the 7.7% fall in January. Likewise, imports dropped 2.2% from a year ago, following a 7.8% decrease in January.

As a result, the trade balance posted a surplus of EUR 11.5 billion, representing a substantial improvement from the EUR 1 billion deficit in January.

On a month-on-month basis, exports grew 0.9% in February and imports increased 3.5%. Consequently, the seasonally adjusted trade surplus fell to EUR 7.0 billion from EUR 12.8 billion in January.