DAX Down In Negative Territory As Tariff Worries Hurt Sentiment

(RTTNews) - After two successive days of solid gains, German stocks are down in negative territory on Wednesday with tariff worries returning to hurt sentiment.

New U.S. export restrictions on Nvidia's AI chips to China, and U.S. President Donald Trump's order for an investigation into potential tariffs on critical mineral imports, are weighing as well.

A profit warning by ASML, and Nvidia's announcement that it would incur $5.5 billion in charges due to new U.S. export controls are also dampening the mood.

Meanwhile, investors await the European Central Bank's monetary policy meeting on Thursday. The ECB is widely expected to lower rate by 25 basis points.

The benchmark DAX was down 100.38 points or 0.47% 21,131.14 a little while ago. The index had dropped to 20,956.20 earlier in the session.

Brenntag is down nearly 4%. Siemens Energy is down by about 3%, while Merck is declining 2.3%.

Heidelberg Materials, Infineon Technologies, Porsche, Adidas, Daimler Truck Holding, Qiagen, Deutsche Bank, MTU Aero Engines, Deutsche Boerse and Zalando are down 1 to 2%.

Sartorius is rising more than 3% on strong results. The pharmaceutical and lab equipment company reported that its net results for the first quarter increased to 48.5 million euros from 36.9 million euros in the same quarter.

Quarterly underlying net profit increased by 21.4% to 85 million euros from 70 million euros in the first three months of the previous year. Underlying earnings per ordinary share amounted to 1.22 euros up from 1.01 euros in the prior year.

Sartorius projects sales revenue growth of around 6% for the Group, around 7% for the Bioprocess Solutions division and around 1% for Lab Products & Services for 2025.

E.ON is up nearly 1.5%, while RWE, Deutsche Telekom, Allianz and Vonovia are moderately higher.

In economic news, Eurozone inflation slowed in March, as initially estimated, as energy prices declined for the first time in four months and services inflation softened for the third straight month.

The harmonized index of consumer prices climbed 2.2% on a yearly basis in March, slightly slower than the 2.3% rise in February, final data from Eurostat showed. The rate came in line with the flash estimate released on April 1.

Core inflation that excludes prices of food, alcohol and tobacco, weakened to 2.4%, in line with the estimate, from 2.6% in the previous month.

The euro area current account surplus declined in February, falling to EUR 34 billion from EUR 40 billion a month earlier, data from the European Central Bank showed.

In twelve months to February, the current account surplus totalled EUR 411 billion or 2.7% of GDP. This was up from EUR 299 billion or 2% of GDP a year earlier.