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Trading floor in Frankfurt on June 29, 2022
Photo: STAFF / REUTERS
The fear of drastic interest rate hikes by the central banks and a recession hit the stock exchanges again at the end of a black six-month period.
In addition, the gas crisis and the call from the utility Uniper for state aid weighed on the mood.
Dax and EuroStoxx50 fell on Thursday by almost two percent to 12,783.77 and 3451.54 points respectively.
The US standard value index Dow Jones fell almost a percent.
The minus of the leading German index since the beginning of the month has added up to a good eleven percent.
Never before has he lost so badly in a June.
Its pan-European counterpart posted its biggest June loss in 14 years, down 9 percent.
The same applied to the US standard values index, which lost almost seven percent within a month.
"In view of the increasing number of earnings forecasts collected by companies, investors are beginning to correct their buy marks for prices that they consider cheap again," said analyst Jochen Stanzl from online broker CMC Markets.
From this point of view, shares are not cheap even after the recent price losses.
Stock marketers were concerned about the commitments made by the heads of the US Federal Reserve, the ECB and the Bank of England (BoE) to fight inflation.
"Jerome Powell, Christine Lagarde and Andrew Bailey are the bad mood trio at the moment and have dashed hopes that central banks will step on the interest rate brakes," said analyst Christian Henke from brokerage house IG.
Spain's inflation tops 10 percent
Interest rate hike speculation was fueled by the latest inflation data from European countries.
According to preliminary figures, the inflation rate in France reached a record high of 6.5 percent in June.
In Spain it exceeded the ten percent mark for the first time since 1985.
Fears of recession were also reflected in falling commodity prices.
Speculations of falling demand pushed the Brent crude oil from the North Sea down 0.7 percent to $115.48 a barrel (159 liters) and copper down 1.9 percent to $8239 a ton.
In contrast, “safe havens” such as the US dollar, the world's leading currency, were in demand.
The dollar index, which tracks the rate against major currencies, rose 0.4 percent to 105.48 points.
The demand for Bunds pushed the yield on ten-year titles to 1.394 percent.
Gold could not benefit and lost 0.7 percent to $ 1804 per troy ounce (31.1 grams).
Rising interest rates and the appreciation of the dollar made the precious metal less attractive, said analyst Ricardo Evangelista of brokerage house ActivTrades.
At the same time, the European natural gas future rose by a good six percent to EUR 145.25 per megawatt hour because investors feared that Russia would stop deliveries altogether.
"Then it would be difficult to replenish the gas reserves for the winter," warned Commerzbank analyst Carsten Fritsch.
Record fall for Uniper shares
Against this background, Uniper conceded its business goals and wants to slip under a state protective umbrella.
The utility is the largest foreign customer of the Russian Gazprom group.
Due to the failure of deliveries, Uniper had to stock up on natural gas elsewhere at higher prices, write the analysts at Citigroup.
They estimated the resulting losses at 30 million euros a day.
This caused Uniper shares to drop by a record 23 percent at times.
At 12.76 euros, the titles were as cheap as they were five and a half years ago.
Papers from Uniper's parent company Fortuna fell by up to 12.7 percent in Helsinki to a two-year low of EUR 14.44.
RWE and E.ON slipped by up to 5.5 percent.
Gazprom stocks in Moscow were threatened with a drop of 33 percent at times, the biggest daily loss in their history.
The company canceled its dividend for the first time since 1998.
A record payout was originally planned.
dab/Reuters