German Stocks Pare Gains As Oil Prices Rebound, DAX Slips

(RTTNews) - After moving notably higher Wednesday morning, German stocks pared gains as oil prices turned higher, rebounding from a sharp fall in the previous session.

Investors digested Germany's retails sales and unemployment data and looked ahead to a preliminary inflation report for September.

Brent crude futures for December delivery climbed to $97.70 a barrel, and were up 1% at $97.13 a barrel a little while ago. Lingering concerns about energy supply due to a lack of progress in U.S.-Iran negotiations to reopen the Strait of Hormuz continued to render the oil market quite volatile.

The benchmark DAX, which climbed to 25,584.38, was down 16.97 points or 0.07% at 25,358.32 a few minutes before noon.

Commerzbank and SAP dropped by about 2.3% and 2.2%, respectively. Continental, Hochtief, Allianz, Siemens Healthineers, Siemens Energy, Siemens, Hannover RE, Henkel and Deutsche Telekom shed 0.3%-0.7%.

BMW, MTU Aero Engines and Zalando gained 2.2%-2.3%. Fresenius, RWE and Beiersdorf moved up 1.5%, 1.3% and 1.2%, respectively.

Rheinmetall, E.ON, Bayer, Merk, BASF, Volkswagen, Deutsche Post, Daimler Truck Holding, Qiagen, Brenntag and Mercedes-Benz gained 0.5%-1%.

Data from the Federal Employment Agency showed Germany's unemployment increased more than expected in September, with the number of people out of work increasing by 12,000 from August, much larger than forecast of 1,000. This followed an increase of 5,000 in August.

At the same time, the unemployment rate remained unchanged at 6.4% in September. The rate also matched expectations.

Data from Destatis today showed that the adjusted jobless rate held steady at 4% in August. There were 1.76 million unemployed in August, up 9,000 from July, the labor force survey revealed. The unadjusted jobless rate rose to 4.3% in August from 3.9% in the last year.

Germany's retail sales grew 1.3% on a monthly basis in August, reversing a 3.2 percent fall in July, data from Destatis showed. Sales were forecast to climb 1.6%.

On a yearly basis, retail sales fell 0.4% but slower than July's 2.2% decrease.