Germany shares lower at close of trade; DAX down 0.46%

Investing.com – Germany equities were lower at the close on Wednesday, as losses in the Consumer & Cyclical , Retail and Technology sectors propelled shares lower.

At the close in Frankfurt, the DAX declined 0.46%, while the MDAX index lost 0.52%, and the TecDAX index declined 0.97%.

The biggest gainers of the session on the DAX were Bayer AG NA (DE: BAYGN ), which rose 4.18% or 2.78 points to trade at 69.28 at the close. Deutsche Bank AG NA O.N. (DE: DBKGn ) added 1.99% or 0.156 points to end at 7.984 and Volkswagen AG VZO O.N. (DE: VOWG_p ) was up 0.42% or 0.64 points to 151.66 in late trade.

Biggest losers included Beiersdorf AG O.N. (DE: BEIG ), which lost 9.61% or 8.740 points to trade at 82.160 in late trade. Merck KGaA (DE: MRCG ) declined 4.24% or 4.02 points to end at 90.86 and Deutsche Lufthansa AG (DE: LHAG ) shed 2.38% or 0.560 points to 22.950.

The top performers on the MDAX were Commerzbank AG O.N. (DE: CBKG ) which rose 4.64% to 7.097, Leoni AG (DE: LEOGn ) which was up 3.17% to settle at 23.460 and Freenet AG NA (DE: FNTGn ) which gained 2.65% to close at 18.9550.

The worst performers were Sartorius AG VZO O.N. (DE: SATG_p ) which was down 3.15% to 138.300 in late trade, Fielmann AG (DE: FIEG ) which lost 3.04% to settle at 59.100 and Morphosys AG O.N. (DE: MORG ) which was down 2.99% to 89.2500 at the close.

The top performers on the TecDAX were Freenet AG NA (DE: FNTGn ) which rose 2.65% to 18.955, Nordex SE O.N. (DE: NDXG ) which was up 2.13% to settle at 11.250 and SMA Solar Technology AG (DE: S92G ) which gained 1.79% to close at 22.700.

The worst performers were Medigene NA O.N. (DE: MDG1k ) which was down 4.42% to 9.300 in late trade, Sartorius AG VZO O.N. (DE: SATG_p ) which lost 3.15% to settle at 138.300 and Morphosys AG O.N. (DE: MORG ) which was down 2.99% to 89.250 at the close.

Declining stocks outnumbered rising ones by 438 to 261 and 82 ended unchanged on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange.

The DAX volatility index , which measures the implied volatility of DAX options, was up 2.55% to 16.11.

In commodities trading, Gold Futures for April delivery was down 0.55% or 7.35 to $1321.15 a troy ounce. Meanwhile, Crude oil for delivery in April rose 3.28% or 1.82 to hit $57.32 a barrel, while the May Brent oil contract rose 2.26% or 1.48 to trade at $66.84 a barrel.

EUR/USD was down 0.13% to 1.1370, while EUR/GBP fell 0.64% to 0.8544.

The US Dollar Index Futures was up 0.17% at 96.032.