DAX Down Sharply As Stocks Tumble On Tariff Concerns

(RTTNews) - German stocks are down sharply on Friday as trade war concerns hurt sentiment following U.S. President Donald Trump imposing a 35% tariff on Canadian imports, effective August 1.

Trump also talked about blanket tariffs of 15 to 20% on most of America's trading partners and announced plans to make a 'major statement' on Russia.

Meanwhile, markets await news on tariffs for the European Union. Currently, the U.S. imposes 50% tariffs on EU steel and aluminum, 25% on cars and 10% on all EU imports.

The benchmark DAX, which dropped to 24,166.46, was down 270.60 points or 1.11% at 24,202.48 a few minutes ago.

Brenntag, Siemens Healthineers, Deutsche Post, Siemens and Commerzbank are down 2 to 2.25%.

Deutsche Bank, Daimler Truck Holding, Sartorius, Heidelberg Materials, Rheinmetall, Continental, Infineon Technologies, SAP, Bayer, BASF, Beiersdorf, Qiagen, Adidas, Porsche and Fresenius Medical Care are down 1 to 1.7%.

In economic news, Germany's wholesale price inflation accelerated in June largely reflecting higher prices of food and beverages, data from Destatis showed.

Wholesale prices grew 0.9% on a yearly basis in June, following April's 0.4% increase. The increase in June was the fastest in three months.

Destatis said the main reason for the annual growth was higher prices of food, beverages and tobacco, with prices up 4.2%.

The wholesale selling prices of non-ferrous ores, non-ferrous metals and non-ferrous semi-finished metal products also increased substantially. By contrast, wholesale of solid fuels and mineral oil products logged a notable decline.

Month-on-month, wholesale prices gained 0.2% in June, partially offsetting the 0.3% fall a month ago.