DAX Hits Record High On Easing Inflation, Strong Earnings

(RTTNews) - German stocks gained significant ground in positive territory on Thursday as easing concerns about inflation and some encouraging corporate earnings announcements helped underpin sentiment.

Brent crude front-month futures dropped to $81.19 a barrel before recovering to $92.05, but still remained in negative territory, losing about 0.8%.

The benchmark DAX, which rose to a fresh record high of 27,001.57, was up 243.33 points or 0.91% at 26,885.40 a few minutes before noon.

Shares of insurer Allianz climbed 1.5%, lifted by better-than-expected third-quarter earnings and an upward revision in full-year earnings outlook. For the nine-month period, Allianz recorded an operating profit of 14.1 billion euros, higher than prior year's 13.1 billion euros. Following the strong performance, the company raised the upper end of its fiscal 2026 operating profit target range to around 18.6 billion euros from previous view of 17.4 billion euros +/- 1 billion euros.

Munich RE moved up 1.8% on stronger than expected third quarter results. The company reported third quarter net income of 1.74 billion euros compared to 2.00 billion euros, a year ago. For the nine month period, net result climbed to 5.67 billion euros from 5.18 billion euros, prior year. Insurance revenue from insurance contracts increased to 46.58 billion euros from 45.16 billion euros, last year.

Merck advanced 2.5% after raising its annoual core profit guidance. Siemens moved up nearly 5% after raising medium-term targets following better-than-expected fourth-quarter results.

Zalando climbed by a little over 4%. Fresenius gained 2.75%. Continental, Hochtief, Adidas, Gea Group, Symrise, Deutsche Post, Siemens Energy, Bayer, Heidelberg Materials and Vonovia gained 1.3%-2%.

MTU Aero Engines, Deutsche Telekom, BASF, Beiersdorf and E.On posted moderate gains.

Brenntag dropped nearly 2%. Infineon Technologies eased by about 0.8%, while Commerzbank, Henkel, Rheinmetall, BMW and Deutsche Bank shed 0.3%-0.7%.