Germany shares higher at close of trade; DAX up 0.25%

Investing.com – Germany equities were higher at the close on Thursday, as gains in the Retail , Pharmaceuticals & Healthcare and Software sectors propelled shares higher.

At the close in Frankfurt, the DAX gained 0.25%, while the MDAX index added 0.56%, and the TecDAX index added 0.38%.

The biggest gainers of the session on the DAX were Covestro AG (DE: 1COV ), which rose 3.55% or 1.720 points to trade at 50.140 at the close. Wirecard AG (DE: WDIG ) added 3.04% or 3.550 points to end at 120.500 and Fresenius SE & Co KGAA O.N. (DE: FREG ) was up 2.68% or 1.290 points to 49.430 in late trade.

Biggest losers included Deutsche Lufthansa AG (DE: LHAG ), which lost 2.18% or 0.500 points to trade at 22.450 in late trade. Thyssenkrupp AG O.N. (DE: TKAG ) declined 1.28% or 0.170 points to end at 13.150 and Infineon Technologies AG NA O.N. (DE: IFXGn ) shed 0.90% or 0.175 points to 19.305.

The top performers on the MDAX were Zalando SE (DE: ZALG ) which rose 23.76% to 32.40, Duerr AG (DE: DUEG ) which was up 7.60% to settle at 35.940 and Deutsche Pfandbriefbank AG (DE: PBBG ) which gained 5.24% to close at 10.84.

The worst performers were Kion Group AG (DE: KGX ) which was down 3.06% to 50.12 in late trade, Freenet AG NA (DE: FNTGn ) which lost 2.32% to settle at 18.5150 and Wacker Chemie O.N. (DE: WCHG ) which was down 2.28% to 90.06 at the close.

The top performers on the TecDAX were Isra Vision O.N. (DE: ISRG ) which rose 16.88% to 37.05, RIB Software AG Na (DE: RIB ) which was up 6.04% to settle at 12.810 and Wirecard AG (DE: WDIG ) which gained 3.04% to close at 120.500.

The worst performers were Aixtron SE NA O.N. (DE: AIXGn ) which was down 3.98% to 7.8580 in late trade, Freenet AG NA (DE: FNTGn ) which lost 2.32% to settle at 18.515 and S&T AG (DE: SANT1 ) which was down 1.67% to 21.18 at the close.

Declining stocks outnumbered rising ones by 359 to 337 and 82 ended unchanged on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange.

The DAX volatility index , which measures the implied volatility of DAX options, was down 3.04% to 15.62.

In commodities trading, Gold Futures for April delivery was down 0.35% or 4.65 to $1316.55 a troy ounce. Meanwhile, Crude oil for delivery in April rose 0.30% or 0.17 to hit $57.11 a barrel, while the May Brent oil contract fell 0.44% or 0.29 to trade at $66.29 a barrel.

EUR/USD was up 0.14% to 1.1384, while EUR/GBP rose 0.47% to 0.8582.

The US Dollar Index Futures was down 0.01% at 96.032.