German bunds remain flat after September trade balance cheers investors amid Brexit uncertainty

The German bunds remained flat during European trading session Friday after the country’s trade balance for the month of September cheered market investors amid ongoing Brexit uncertainties.

The German 10-year bond yield, which move inversely to its price, hovered around -0.247 percent, the yield on 30-year note remained flat at 0.254 percent while the yield on short-term 2-year traded tad down at -0.623 percent by 09:55GMT.

While yesterday’s German IP figures signalled ongoing contraction in the manufacturing sector at the end of Q3, today’s trade report provided a somewhat more upbeat assessment for external demand for German goods in September, Daiwa Capital Markets reported.

Indeed, the value of exports rose for the fourth month out of the past six and by a sizeable 1-1/2 percent m/m, to leave them more than 4-1/2 percent higher than a year. But with the value of imports up 1.3 percent m/m, the adjusted trade surplus widened only very slightly to €19.2 billion, the report added.

When adjusting for price effects, Germany’s export performance was also encouraging in September, with the 1.3 percent m/m increase the strongest for six months. But while this left export volumes up 1/2 percent over the third quarter as a whole, with import volumes rising by the same magnitude in Q3, today’s data suggested that net trade provided no contribution to GDP growth last quarter, Daiwa further noted in the report.

Meanwhile, the German DAX edged tad -0.26 percent down to 13,255.68 by 10:05GMT.