German stocks with small gains at the start of trading on Thursday

BERLIN, Feb. 25 (Xinhua) -- German stocks showed small gains at the start of trading on Thursday, with the benchmark DAX index rising by 69.02 points, or 0.49 percent, opening at 14,045.02 points.

The biggest winner among Germany's 30 largest listed companies at the start of trading was telecommunications giant Deutsche Telekom, increasing by 2.07 percent, followed by Deutsche Bank with 1.98 percent and sportswear manufacturer Adidas with 1.63 percent.

Shares of Bayer fell by 3.01 percent. The German pharmaceutical giant Bayer was the biggest loser at the start of trading on Thursday after announcing record net losses of almost 10.5 billion euros (12.8 billion U.S. dollars) in full-year 2020, partly due to costs for glyphosate litigations.

On Thursday, German reinsurer Munich Re announced profit of 1.2 billion euros in full-year 2020, declining by more than 50 percent "in spite of the tremendous challenges posed by COVID-19" as losses related to the pandemic were totaling 3.5 billion euros.

Order intake in Germany's main construction industry in 2020 declined by 2.6 percent compared to the previous year, the country's Federal Statistical Office announced on Thursday.

Turnover in Germany's non-financial business economy was "considerably down" in January compared with the previous month, declining by 8.6 percent despite continued growth since reaching a low in April, the office said.

The yield on German ten-year bonds went up 0.025 percentage points to minus 0.277 percent, and the euro was trading almost unchanged at 1.2165 U.S. dollars, increasing by 0.02 percent on Thursday morning.