Rate Cut Fails to Spur Market
May 05, 2011
The weighted 30-share IBIS DAX stock index, which tracks prices in electronic trading, settled at 2562.12, up 2.70 from Thursday's settlement. That small uptick reversed the 2.10-point decline in the DAX index during the Frankfurt Stock Exchange's official three-hour floor trading session earlier Friday. The DAX closed at 2555.16, down 0.1%, following Thursday's 13.52-point gain. Share prices struggled to make any headway in the midst of a consolidation among German government bonds Friday. Bond prices settled back after climbing a day earlier, on the Bundesbank's surprise 0.30% lowering of its repo rate. At 11:45 a.m. EDT, the benchmark German 10-year 6.25% bond dated April 2021 was priced at 99.30 to yield 6.34%, down from 90.73 late Thursday, yielding 6.28%. German markets didn't react to inflation data released Friday by three German states, indicating that preliminary western Germany consumer prices rose about 1.5% year-on-year in August and was nearly flat on a monthly basis, analysts said. Meanwhile, the dollar was quoted at 1.4850 marks late in the day, down from 1.4894 at midday in Europe. Shares in Volkswagen slipped Friday in the continuing deadlock between the E.U. Commission and Germany over aid to the car-makers eastern German plant. VW slipped 1.45 marks to settle at 537.30 marks. Porsche's shares, however, jumped 34.00 marks, or 4.0%, to settle IBIS at 885.00 marks.
