Europe Markets: Germany is getting a new chancellor. Here’s how the DAX has performed under outgoing Angela Merkel

The euro
EURUSD,
+0.57%
rose against the dollar
DXY,
-0.33%
and the pound
GBPUSD,
-0.19%,
which hit low of $1.3173 after a report in the Financial Times said the U.K. will announce fresh COVID restrictions — vaccine passports for big venues and a work-from-home order — to battle surging cases.

Pfizer
PFE,
-0.75%
said Wednesday that three doses — two vaccinations plus a booster — of the COVID vaccine it has developed with BioNTech
BNTX,
-4.20%
appeared to keep the omicron variant at bay, though it stressed the results were from preliminary lab studies.

Technology stocks led the losses in Europe, with Infineon Technologies
IFXA,
-6.82%
dropping over 3% after a downgrade to neutral at JP Morgan, where analysts said semiconductor cycle risks are increasing as inventories normalize. ASML Holding
ASM,
-1.86%
dropped 1%, and ASM International
ASM,
-1.86%
stock slipped 0.9%.

Pharmaceutical names were higher, with Roche
ROG,
+1.22%
up 1.7% and Novo Nordisk
NVO,
+1.78%

NOVO.B,
+1.06%
stock up over 2%.

The most heavily weighted stock on the Stoxx Europe 600, Nestlé
NSRGY,
+2.06%

NESN,
+1.81%,
climbed 2% after the Swiss food giant agreed to cut its stake in L’Oréal
OR,
-1.35%
in a sale of $10 billion worth of shares back to the French cosmetics maker.

Wednesday also marked a changing of the guard for Germany, as center-left leader Olaf Scholz became Germany’s ninth post-World War II chancellor Wednesday, beginning a new era for the EU’s biggest economy, also struggling to get its own COVID outbreak under control.

According to data from FactSet, the German DAX gained 220% throughout Chancellor Angela Merkel’s 16-year chancellorship, though analysts stressed that it was tough to extrapolate much from politics. During her 2005 to 2021 leadership, the German market followed Wall Street into the Global Financial Crisis in 2008 and 2009.

As for her predecessors, the German DAX rose 16% under Gerhard Schröder, who served from 1998 to 2005, but 347% under Helmut Kohl who also served 16 years, according to FactSet data.

The benchmark DAX stock index (1876534) surged 30% between October 1989 and July 1990 with Kohl overseeing the post-reunification boom. The euro’s introduction, and the dot-com bubble were also big influential events for German stocks.