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Bear and bull:

Investors are turning their attention to the ZEW economic barometer and US consumer prices

Photo: Frank Rumpenhorst/picture-alliance/dpa

Investors on the German stock market are cautious ahead of important economic data on Tuesday. The fact that the major stock market indices in the USA had again reached highs the day before, but were unable to maintain them until the end of trading and in some cases slipped slightly into the red, also had a slight impact on the mood.

Shortly after the start of trading, the

Dax

was down 0.3 percent at 16,986 points. This means that the Dax falls back below the 17,000 point mark, which it had surpassed the previous day. Its record high from last week at just over 17,050 points remains within reach. “But there’s no real buying mood,” say the market experts at Index Radar.

On the economic side, the German ZEW economic barometer will be published in the morning, before the even more attention-grabbing US consumer prices come into focus in the afternoon. The inflation data from the world's largest economy, along with the US labor market and other important US economic data, are among the key indicators that the US Federal Reserve Bank uses for its interest rate decisions. The majority of the market now expects the first key interest rate cut in May.

Among the individual stocks,

Rheinmetall

jumped to a new record high of more than 360 euros. The trigger is likely to be the demands of CDU defense expert

Roderich Kiesewetter

in the “Süddeutsche Zeitung”. He called for the Bundeswehr special fund to be tripled to 300 billion euros in order to make the Bundeswehr competitive.

Outside the Dax family, things are looking

up for

Tui

. Thanks to growing holiday demand, the world's largest travel group sees itself on course for business as before the corona pandemic. The focus here is also likely to be on the general meeting, as shareholders vote on leaving the London stock exchange. If a majority of three quarters of the votes were in favor, the main listing would be in Frankfurt again and the share would have a chance of returning to the MDax soon.

US stock market inconsistent

The US stock markets showed mixed trends at the start of the week. Hopes of a further cooling of inflation caused the

Dow Jones index

to rise by 0.3 percent to 38,797 points on Monday. The broader

S&P 500

fell 0.1 percent, but remained above the 5,000 mark at 5,022 points.

During trading, the

Nasdaq

technology exchange was temporarily above its record closing price from November 2021. However, the index later weakened and closed at 0, 3 percent lower at 15,943 jobs.

Tuesday's inflation data release promises to be the most important event of the week, said Chris Beauchamp, chief market analyst at IG. "Inflation is expected to move further towards the Fed's target, and investors are therefore hoping for a sharper decline in inflation, which could be the basis for new records on US stock markets."

Bitcoin over $50,000

The digital currency

Bitcoin

was recently trading just above the $50,000 mark. On Monday, the price of the largest crypto asset by market value rose above the $50,000 mark for the first time since the end of 2021. This is the highest level since the end of 2021, a little over two years. In a daily comparison, the price gains were around $1,900 or 3.9 percent. Other digital stocks such as Ether also rose significantly.

Bitcoin has been benefiting from increasing interest for several days now. Apparently the introduction of special Bitcoin funds is becoming increasingly noticeable. These funds were approved by the US Securities and Exchange Commission in January, but this only led to short-term price euphoria.

Oil prices are rising slightly

Oil prices rose slightly on Tuesday. A barrel (159 liters) of North Sea

Brent

for delivery in April cost $82.17 in the morning. That was 17 cents more than the day before. The price for a barrel of American

West Texas Intermediate

(WTI) for March delivery rose 22 cents to $77.14.

The war between Israel and the Islamist terrorist organization Hamas remains a dominant issue on the oil market. In recent weeks and months, concerns about a possible escalation of the situation in the Middle East have given oil prices a boost on several occasions.

With news agencies