Investing.com – Germany equities were higher at the close on Thursday, as gains in the Retail, Pharmaceuticals & Healthcare and Construction sectors propelled shares higher.
At the close in Frankfurt, the DAX gained 0.91%, while the MDAX index gained 0.79%, and the TecDAX index added 0.83%.
The biggest gainers of the session on the DAX were Merck KGaA (DE:MRCG), which rose 6.43% or 5.20 points to trade at 86.04 at the close. Fresenius Medical Care KGAA ST (DE:FMEG) added 3.63% or 3.100 points to end at 88.500 and Fresenius SE & Co KGAA O.N. (DE:FREG) was up 2.34% or 1.580 points to 69.080 in late trade.
Biggest losers included Henkel & Co KGaA AG Pref (DE:HNKG_p), which lost 0.43% or 0.45 points to trade at 104.60 in late trade. Commerzbank AG O.N. (DE:CBKG) declined 0.29% or 0.030 points to end at 10.308 and Deutsche Post AG NA O.N. (DE:DPWGn) shed 0.26% or 0.090 points to 34.200.
The top performers on the MDAX were Leoni AG (DE:LEOGn) which rose 5.80% to 56.940, Metro Wholesale & Food Specialist AG (DE:B4B) which was up 5.40% to settle at 11.6050 and Osram Licht AG (DE:OSRn) which gained 3.66% to close at 54.42.
The worst performers were RTL Group SA (DE:RRTL) which was down 8.96% to 65.000 in late trade, Salzgitter AG (DE:SZGG) which lost 2.60% to settle at 46.820 and K+S AG NA O.N. (DE:SDFGn) which was down 2.01% to 24.850 at the close.
The top performers on the TecDAX were Nordex SE O.N. (DE:NDXG) which rose 8.34% to 10.780, Medigene NA O.N. (DE:MDG1k) which was up 3.09% to settle at 16.350 and RIB Software AG Na (DE:RIB) which gained 2.80% to close at 22.020.
The worst performers were Cancom SE O.N. (DE:COKG) which was down 3.96% to 90.900 in late trade, Nemetschek AG O.N. (DE:NEKG) which lost 1.56% to settle at 107.500 and SLM Solutions Group AG (DE:AM3D) which was down 1.31% to 34.00 at the close.
Advancing stocks outnumbered falling ones by 472 to 222 and 79 ended unchanged on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange.
The DAX volatility index, which measures the implied volatility of DAX options, was down 0.87% to 15.42.
In commodities trading, Gold Futures for June delivery was down 0.18% or 2.30 to $1289.20 a troy ounce. Meanwhile, Crude oil for delivery in June rose 0.34% or 0.24 to hit $71.73 a barrel, while the July Brent oil contract rose 1.08% or 0.86 to trade at $80.14 a barrel.
EUR/USD was down 0.08% to 1.1799, while EUR/GBP fell 0.27% to 0.8730.
The US Dollar Index Futures was up 0.10% at 93.36.