The Chinese economy grew at its slowest pace in the third quarter since the beginning of 2023. The government wants to counteract this with economic stimulus measures. The ASML share slipped significantly into the red after the quarterly report.
The DAX also performed well in the last trading week and surpassed the 19,600 point mark for the first time. On a weekly basis, the leading German index gained 1.46% to 19,644 points. The MDAX improved by 1.54% to 27,327 points.
The Dow Jones ended the week with a gain of 0.96% at 43,267 points. The Nasdaq 100 ended the weekend almost unchanged at 20,319 points.
China’s economy is growing more slowly
Economic growth in China continues to lose momentum. In the third quarter, the second largest economy grew by 4.6% compared to the same period last year, the statistics office in Beijing announced. Growth was therefore 0.1 percentage points lower than in the previous quarter. While industrial production and retail sales exceeded expectations, export growth slowed. The real estate market also continues to show significant weaknesses. The government has already announced that it wants to stimulate the economy with economic aid. However, she failed to provide any details.
But the situation could also be better in Europe: Economists from all over the world continue to expect inflation rates to exceed the central banks’ targets. This emerges from the Economic Experts Survey, a quarterly survey by the Ifo Institute and the Institute for Swiss Economic Policy. Accordingly, 2.4% is expected in Germany this year, 3.1% in Austria and 2.3% in France. In the Eurozone it is 2.6%. “Inflation above the European Central Bank’s target of 2% is also expected in the medium term,” says Ifo researcher Niklas Potrafke. “Due to these stagnating inflation expectations, central banks could hold back on further interest rate cuts.”
ASML: Weak quarterly figures cause shares to crash
The world’s most important manufacturer of lithography systems, ASML, presented figures for the third quarter last week. Since important customers of the company, such as Intel and Samsung, are currently postponing investments, orders worth only 2.6 billion euros were received in the reporting period – 5.4 billion euros had been expected. Chief Executive Christophe Fouquet said the market recovery was slower than expected, leading to a more cautious attitude among customers heading into 2025. ASML has therefore lowered its forecasts for the coming year: net sales are likely to only be 30 to 35 billion euros. The group had previously expected 30 to 40 billion euros. The gross margin is now expected to be 51 to 53%, whereas previously the forecast was 54 to 56%
After the report was published, ASML shares temporarily fell by up to 20%, wiping out almost 60 billion euros of market capitalization within one day. The situation has now stabilized somewhat; the paper also lost 13.97% on a weekly basis.
Goldman Sachs has lowered its price target from 1,185 euros because of the figures, but continues to rate the share as “Buy”. Jefferies also sticks to its buy recommendation, but now sees the fair value of the ASML share at 1,260 instead of 760 euros.
outlook
Next week, the DAX giant SAP will present its third quarter report. Cloud growth was particularly impressive in the second quarter. The fresh figures will show whether the company can achieve its solid annual forecast. The share reached a new record high in the past trading week.
Figures from the industrial conglomerate 3M come from the USA. Here too, the Q2 figures were convincing; sales and profits were well above analyst expectations.
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