DAX Modestly Lower In Cautious Trade; Auto Stocks Among Major Losers

(RTTNews) - German stocks are down in negative territory on Friday in cautious trade amid concerns about a possible downgrade of France's sovereign rating. Optimism about an interest rate cut by the Federal Reserve next week helps limit market's downside.

The benchmark DAX, which advanced to 23,795.88 earlier, was down 57.45 points or 0.24% at 23,635.88 a little while ago.

Commerzbank is down 2.1%, while Volkswagen, Mercedes-Benz, Porsche Automobil Holding and BMW are down 1.8 to 2%.

Siemens Energy, Heidelberg Materials, Bayer and Infineon Technologies are lower by 1 to 1.4%, while Symrise is down nearly 1%. Continental, Siemens, Adidas, Deutsche Bank and Merck are down with moderate losses.

Hannover Rueck is gaining about 2.1%. Munich RE, E.ON, Qiagen, MTU Aero Engines and Vonovia are up 0.4 to 1%.

SAP is gaining about 0.25%, recovering a bit from early weakness. The company has announced that it has completed the acquisition of SmartRecruiters, a leading provider of enterprise-grade talent acquisition software.

Data from Destatis showed Germany's consumer price inflation increased as initially estimated in August to the highest level in five months.

The consumer price index rose 2.2% year-on-year following a 2% rise in each of the previous two months. That was in line with the flash data published on August 29.

Core inflation, which excludes food and energy prices, remained stable at 2.7%, as estimated.

The harmonized index of consumer prices, or HICP, rose 2.1% year-on-year following a 1.8% increase in July, confirming the earlier estimate. On a month-on-month basis, the HICP edged up 0.1% after a 0.4% increase in July.