PARIS/FRANKFURT (dpa-AFX) - Investors in auto stocks started the new year optimistically across Europe on Monday. Investors are betting that the industry could benefit strongly from a possible economic recovery in 2023. A large order for the defense group and automotive supplier Rheinmetall also provided for an overall good mood. However, major investors were still absent from London and New York at the start of the week for holiday reasons. Trading was therefore not particularly broad-based.

In a friendly market environment, auto stocks, which are considered sensitive to economic developments, rose significantly: The European sector index rose by 2.4 percent, leading the sector overview.

The biggest gains in the sector index were recorded by shares in suppliers. In Paris, for example, Faurecia soared by 5.7 percent and Valeo by 5.4 percent. At the top of the German Dax index, Continental shares gained 4.7 percent.

Shares in Rheinmetall rose 2.6 percent, making them among the best performers in the MDax. By late morning, the mid-cap index had gained 1.2 percent.

Rheinmetall won an order for switch protection parts for electric cars. Last week, the Group had already announced a major order worth €770 million from an industrial customer for refrigerant compressors - also an order from the Group's non-military sector.

Among the automakers' shares, Renault and Volvo Cars stood out positively with gains of almost four percent. Furthermore, Hyundai and Kia Motors were already in demand in thinned-out Asian trading, wrote stock market expert Andreas Lipkow.

According to Lipkow, investors were counting on an early and rapid economic recovery in the second half of the year in the euro zone and in the United States. In addition, the easing of the corona-related restrictions in China plays an important role. The economic revival then assumed is also likely to increase the momentum of the world's most important auto sales market.

In the positive picture of an expected economic recovery, the European gas price continued its downward trend of the past few trading days at the start of the new year due to unusually mild winter temperatures. Natural gas is now as cheap again on the gas market as it was last in February 2022 and thus before the start of the Russian war in Ukraine.

In Germany in particular, the German government's third relief package is intended to provide financial assistance and thus cushion the expected economic downturn. Among other things, consumers will now generally benefit from the electricity and gas price brake, which is intended to counteract the price explosion in energy costs in the new year. This means that gas consumers are guaranteed a gross price of 12 cents per kilowatt hour for 80 percent of their previous consumption. Similarly, electricity consumers are guaranteed 40 cents per kilowatt hour.

However, these measures will not directly relieve motorists of their fuel costs. In addition, according to the NRW consumer center, many motor vehicle insurance policies will become more expensive in the new year. Here, the major hail damage, especially to motor vehicles in June 2021, played a decisive role, but also the high inflation of recent months, which had increased the cost of repairs./la/men/mis