FRANKFURT (dpa-AFX) - Due to an unexpectedly weak order development of Daimler Truck in North America, the shares of the truck manufacturer went into reverse gear on Tuesday. In early trading, the papers slumped to their lowest level in almost six months and fell below the 200-day line, which is seen as a long-term trend indicator. They were last quoted four percent down at 28.14 euros, bringing up the rear on the Dax. In pre-market trading, the shares of the Stuttgart-based company were still clearly up.

After the already known key data of Daimler Truck, many key figures were no longer surprising. As a novelty, according to traders, the focus was on the fact that the order intake in the first quarter was down, but in contrast to previous reports from other industry companies, it was solid.

Goldman analyst Daniela Costa noted that new orders were five percent above the average analyst forecast and were primarily driven by the Asia region. By contrast, new orders in the highest-margin North American business missed the consensus estimate by 25 percent, she complained. One trader also faulted the order intake in North America, recalling that this trend had already been seen when the 2022 sales figures were announced.

According to JPMorgan expert Jose Asumendi, the seasonally weaker start to the year should be followed by a pickup in earnings momentum in the coming quarters, thanks to the high order backlog. His colleague Himanshu Agarwal from analyst firm Jefferies stressed that the detailed key figures confirmed the previously published key data. He still sees room for improvement in market expectations.

Overall, order intake in the first quarter fell by 11 percent to 122,935 trucks compared with the strong prior-year figure. CFO Jochen Goetz stressed in a conference call that Daimler Truck still had a strong order book despite the decline in orders and was "in principle" sold out for this year.

With the current drop in the share price, the stock reached its low for the year so far and fell to its lowest level since mid-November. So far this year, the share price is down by around two percent. This makes Daimler Truck one of the weakest Dax stocks this year./edh/tih/stk