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

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.