-- German equities finished the trading week on a downbeat note, with the blue-chip DAX index 1.32% in the red at Friday's close, amid news of reignited military clashes between the US and Iran and renewed trade threats.
Even as the US administration insists the ceasefire holds, geopolitical tensions flared overnight with the two sides exchanging fire in the Strait of Hormuz. As US President Donald Trump warned of a return to conflict due to the lack of progress on a deal, Danske Bank anticipates Iran's official response to Washington's latest proposal, which is expected "shortly," to be a key focus for the market.
Concurrently, Trump set a July 4 deadline for the full implementation of the previous year's trade accord with the European Union after speaking with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, warning of "much higher" tariffs if the bloc does not remove duties on US industrial exports. While the European Commission said talks made "good progress," Reuters cited trade committee chair Bernd Lange as saying disagreements over safeguards among some EU states remain unresolved.
Speaking of trade news, the Federal Statistical Office reported that Germany's calendar and seasonally adjusted trade surplus stood at 14.3 billion euros in March, below the revised 19.6 billion euros a month ago and the market forecast of 17.8 billion euros.
Exports edged up 0.5% month over month, against the revised 3.6% jump earlier and the expected 1.7% fall. Monthly imports climbed 5.1%, compared with the revised 4.9% growth previously and the consensus estimate of a 0.8% rise.
On the corporate front, Commerzbank (CBK.F) lost 3.98% amid plans to cut 3,000 roles to help its new profit targets through 2030 and ward off a takeover bid by Italy's UniCredit. After reporting robust first-quarter 2026 results, the German lender raised its 2028 revenue guidance to 15 billion euros from 14.2 billion euros, and set a new 2030 target of 16.8 billion euros, representing a 6% compound annual growth rate.
Meanwhile, Deutsche Bank Research increased its price target for Siemens (SIE.F), saying it still expects an EPS guidance upgrade "on the horizon."
"In this note, we discuss the results from Healthineers [SHL.F] and the read-across from Siemens' peers in the automation and electrification domains. We now expect Digital Industries to beat on all metrics this quarter and anticipate management will upgrade the organic growth guidance for Smart Infrastructure by 2 [points] to a new range of 8-11%, supported by accelerating datacenter demand. Overall, even though SHL lowered its FY26 EPS guide by 2%, we expect Siemens to upgrade its own EPS guidance by 3% to a new range of EUR11.0-11.5, with the Street already sitting at EUR11.3. We are raising our [price target] to EUR255 (vs EUR245 previously) but retain a Hold rating," the research firm wrote.
The German technology group ended the session 1.25% lower, while Siemens Healthineers was down 5.53%.