Reply #27: Germany’s DAX Index Slides, Extending Biggest Quarterly Drop Since 2002

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http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-09-30/germany-stocks-fall-extending-biggest-quarterly-drop-since-2002.html

German stocks fell, extending the benchmark DAX Index (DAX)’s biggest quarterly drop in nine years, as a decline in the nation’s retail sales increased concern the global economy is slowing.

Metro AG (MEO) and Adidas AG (ADS) paced the retreat after German retail sales declined the most in more than four years in August. Bayerische Motoren Werke AG (BMW) and Daimler AG (DAI) dropped as a gauge of Chinese manufacturing shrank for a third month. Deutsche Bank AG (DBK) slid following a report in Handelsblatt that the company may cut its profit goal for this year.

The DAX fell 3.2 percent to 5,461.09 at 12:32 p.m. in Frankfurt. The gauge has slumped 26 percent this quarter, the most since 2002, amid concern global growth is stumbling and policy makers are struggling to contain the European debt crisis. The broader HDAX Index lost 3.2 percent today.

“Consumer sentiment is coming down rapidly,” Heino Ruland, an economist at Ruland Research GmbH in Eppstein, Germany, wrote in a report today. “Recent public talk about a looming recession in the euro area and the U.S. has lifted unemployment expectations considerably. Fears over the state of the global economy are beginning to take its toll.”