DAX (Frankfurt) German Stock market overview Week: 15, 10/04/2012 13/04/2012 This was the 4th week

ek in a row when the German XETRA DAX index has been decreasing, this time at a rate of 2.82% falling even further below 7000 points to 6583.9. Altogether there were only 4 stocks that increased in price, top 3 gainers: Henkel AG & Co. KGaA (+2.01%), Bayerische Motoren Werke AG (+1.08%) and Man SE (+0.39%). Top 3 loosers: METRO AG (-6.98%), COMMERZBANK AG (-6.11%) and Deutsche Boerse AG (-6.10%). The overall turnover during the week was 14.66 billion euro.

Figure 1: DAX index change during week 13. Source: finance.yahoo.com

The number 1 gainer of this week Henkel AG & Co. KGaA manufactures industrial, commercial, and consumer chemical products. The share price of this company increased by 2.01%, during the week there were no rapid changes but steady growth which might be affected by the New Equipment Digest announcement of the best new manufacturing product award winners including Henkel AG as number 1 in the category of Assembly/Fastening/Tools with product: Threadlocker Tape

The second biggest gainer was Bayerische Motoren Werke AG with an increase of 1.08%. This company manufactures and sells luxury cars and motorcycles worldwide. It was recently announced that BMW defended its lead in luxury-car sales in the first quarter as the improved 3Series sedan helped it fend off challenges from Volkswagen`s Audi and Daimler`s Mercedes-Benz, the BMW group achieved an all-time high in sales last month and the best first quarter in its history. With an increase of 0.39% in its share prices, Man SE (MANd), German manufacturer of commercial vehicles, became one of the four lucky gainers during this week. MANd prices keep climbing up constantly since the middle of March, when Volkswagen announced to be going to

build vans with them. On Friday, 13th of April, Volkswagen raised its holdings in MANd to 73%. Yet, on that day share prices of the company decreased by 1.27% and closed at 98.22. METRO AG (MEOd), the German retailer company once more is the biggest faller of the week. With a 6.98% drop in share price from 25.80 EUR to 25.44 EUR. Mainly it might be due to JPMorgan Cazenove, one of the UK's leading investment banks, cutting its target price on the stock to 28.43 from 39.90. Also Metro AG weighed on the DAX index as it fell 1.8 per cent to 25.80 after Berenberg cut the stock to sell from hold.

With a deacrease of 6.11% in share prices, Commerzbank (CBKd) was the second biggest faller of the week. The downward pressure like on many other European bank shares was put by the euro crisis fears. A reasonable decrease could be observed on 12th of April when a building where CBKd is located had to be evacuated after the discovery of a suspicious package that appeared to contain a grenade.

The third biggest faller was Deutsche Boerse (DB1d), a marketplace organizer, with a decrease of 6.10% in share prices. On Friday the share prices decreased by 4.38%, possibly due to DB1ds decision to appeal a European Union veto against a merger with NYSE Euronext. If the merger had happened, it would create the world's largest exchange operator.

Not only DAX, but all the European stocks dropped for the fourth week in a row, which is the biggest decline since August 2011. Also after three successive monthly increases, investor sentiment in the euro zone has dropped significantly this month. Expectations for the next does not look so bright, it could be even possible that the DAX index will reach its 6400 point bound. Nevertheless, this kind of drop will leave place for an increase in index in the immediate or distant future.