FRANKFURT (dpa-AFX) - The year-end rally on the German stock market is underway. The jump above 20,000 points the day before has further fueled the Dax's record run in the middle of the week. The leading German index approached the 20,300-point mark significantly in the afternoon and ultimately ended trading with a gain of 1.08% to 20,232.14 points. In the stock market year 2024, investors can currently look forward to a DAX increase of almost 21%.

The Dax was supported in its run by index heavyweight SAP. The shares gained 3.8%, climbing from record to record for the third day in a row. They benefited above all from positive comments from the banks JPMorgan and UBS. Despite the already strong price increase of around 73 percent this year, SAP shares remain one of the favorites of analyst Toby Ogg from JPMorgan. The share was probably also helped by the fact that US software specialist Salesforce has become somewhat more optimistic for the current financial year.

"It is the heavyweights SAP, Siemens, Munich Re, Allianz and Rheinmetall that are likely to be in demand at least once in the remaining three trading weeks of the year," predicted market strategist Jürgen Molnar from trading house Robomarkets. On this day at least, he was right. All the stocks mentioned rose, with Rheinmetall shares, like SAP, recording their third record day in a row.

The MDax of mid-sized stock market companies ended the day up 1.40 percent at 26,821.54 points, but is still slightly down since the beginning of the year.

The EuroStoxx 50, the eurozone's leading index, gained 0.83% to 4,919.02 points on Wednesday, while moderate losses were recorded in Switzerland and London. In the USA, on the other hand, the year-end rally continued with further records./ck/mis