German Stocks Are Little Changed as Commerzbank Advances

Bloomberg: German stocks were little changed, with the benchmark DAX (DAX) Index heading for a second weekly drop, before next week’s U.S. Federal Reserve meeting.

Metro AG (MEO) added 1 percent after Citigroup Inc. upgraded Germany’s biggest retailer.Commerzbank AG (CBK), Germany’s second largest lender, rose 1 percent as a gauge of banks made the biggest contribution to the Stoxx Europe 600 Index’s gain.The DAX advanced 0.2 percent to 9,034.23 at 10 a.m. in Frankfurt. The equity benchmark has fallen 1.5 percent this week and 3.9 percent this month as better-than-expected U.S. economic reports spurred speculation that the Fed will reduce its monthly bond purchases sooner than forecast. The broader HDAX Index also gained 0.2 percent today.“The fear of a December taper from the Fed has pushed the market into consolidation over the past two weeks,” Ion-Marc Valahu, a co-founder and fund manager at Clairinvest in Geneva, wrote in an e-mail.“The window for a Santa Claus rally is slowly closing. I think we will have to wait for next week to get some sort of rebound.”Some 34 percent of economists predict that the Fed will decide to lower its $85 billion of monthly asset purchases at its Dec. 17-18 meeting, according to a Bloomberg survey on Dec. 6. That compared with 17 percent who forecast tapering at next week’s meeting in a Nov. 8 poll.

reporter on this story: Jonathan Morgan in Frankfurt