DAX Gains As Swiss National Bank Cuts Rate Again

(RTTNews) - German stocks advanced on Thursday as the Swiss National Bank delivered another interest rate cut, reducing its policy rate by 25 basis points to 1.25 percent, as expected by two-thirds of analysts.

Elsewhere, Norway's central bank held its key policy rate at 4.5 percent as expected. The Bank of England will announce its monetary policy decision later today, with no change in rates expected despite inflation hitting the 2 percent target in May.

Closer home, Germany's producer prices continued to fall in May, though at the weakest pace in the current sequence of decreases, which began in July last year, data from Destatis revealed.

Producer prices decreased 2.2 percent on a yearly basis in May, slower than the 3.3 percent fall in April. Economists had forecast an annual fall of 2.0 percent.

On a monthly basis, producer prices remained unchanged versus a 0.2 percent increase in April. Prices were expected to rise by 0.3 percent.

The benchmark DAX was up 91 points, or half a percent, at 18,158 after falling 0.4 percent in the previous session.

Automakers traded mostly higher, with Volkswagen rising 1 percent and Mercedes Benz adding half a percent.

Europe's new car registrations declined in May due to a notable contraction in the electric car sales, data from the European Automobile Manufacturers' Association showed.

Overall car sales posted an annual decrease of 3.0 percent in May, reversing a sharp 13.7 percent increase in April.

MorphoSys climbed 1 percent after it has entered into a delisting agreement with Novartis BidCo AG and Novartis AG upon closing the acquisition by Novartis in May this year.

Nordex, a provider of wind turbine systems, gained 1.3 percent on securing orders for about 172 MW from various customers.