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Trader at Deutsche Börse: The Dax should start with slight gains on Friday
Photo: Frank Rumpenhorst / picture alliance / dpa
After strong trading on Wall Street, the Dax started to show slight gains on Friday.
On Thursday, the leading German index closed 0.3 percent higher at 15,132 points.
Investors' attention is focused on US consumer spending, which is expected to fall again by 0.1 percent in December.
The buying mood of US consumers is considered the mainstay of the world's largest economy and an important factor in the Fed's interest rate policy.
Also on the agenda is the widely acclaimed University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Survey.
Tesla boosts US stock markets
A strong quarterly report from the electric car
maker Tesla
and new data on the US economy caused gains on the US stock exchanges on Thursday.
The
Dow Jones Industrial
closed after a fluctuating course with plus 0.61 percent to 33,949 points just below the daily high reached just before.
The market-wide
S&P 500
gained 1.10 percent to 4060 points.
The Nasdaq 100 was up 2.00 percent to 12,051, back to mid-December levels.
"The US economy was extremely robust in the fourth quarter," portfolio manager Thomas Altmann of QC Partners assessed the data from the US Department of Commerce.
Although the gross domestic product did not increase as strongly as in the third quarter, it still increased by 2.9 percent extrapolated for the year.
However, some bank economists continue to fear a recession and point to weakening consumer demand in the USA.
Investors on the stock exchanges are therefore now continuing to rely on the US Federal Reserve to proceed cautiously with regard to its interest rate policy.
The markets are currently expecting that the Fed will tighten its monetary policy at the next meeting on Wednesday a little more slowly than at the end of 2022, when it reduced the rate of interest rate hikes from 0.75 to 0.50 percentage points.
An increase of 0.25 points is currently expected for the beginning of February.
Since a recession is considered possible in the course of the year, interest rate cuts are even expected towards the end of the year.
On the company side, the main focus was on
Tesla
, because the electric car maker had reported record profits in the final quarter of 2022.
It was also better than expected, easing concerns about demand and profitability that had recently been triggered by price discounts on vehicles.
Investors ignored mixed signals on the outlook.
Tesla shares jumped 11 percent.
The increase in the still young year is now around 30 percent.
Stock markets in China closed for Lunar New Year
Asian markets were on track for a fifth straight week of gains on Friday.
The resilience of the US economy lifted investor sentiment ahead of next week's central bank meetings.
The 225-
stock Nikkei Index
rose 0.2 percent.
The
MSCI index
of Asia-Pacific stocks outside Japan rose 0.53 percent to a nine-month high of 561. The index, which fell nearly 20 percent last year, is up about 11 percent this month and is on the Away to his best January performance ever.
Stock markets in China remained closed for the Chinese New Year celebrations.
Markets open again on January 30th.
Bitcoin is up 10 percent over the start of the week
The digital currency Bitcoin has continued to soar and was last listed at 23,013 US dollars.
The currency was almost 10 percent higher than at the start of the week.
In November 2022, the currency plummeted from over $21,000 to around $16,000 on the back of the collapse of crypto exchange FTX.
A year earlier, bitcoin hit a record high of $69,000.
Oil prices rise slightly
Oil prices stabilized on Friday.
Most recently, a barrel (159 liters) of North Sea Brent cost $87.86.
That was 39 cents more than the day before.
The price of a barrel of the American West Texas Intermediate (WTI) variety rose by 34 cents to $81.35.
The week just ended was unspectacular on the crude oil market.
Prices received a bit of a boost on Thursday from growth data from the USA.
There are hopes on the oil market in the less strict corona course in China.
After turning away from the extremely strict pandemic precautions, the focus is on an economic revival with increasing energy consumption.
This supports oil prices.
With news agencies
