FRANKFURT (dpa-AFX) - Vonovia shares tried to resume their upward trend on Monday. Driving sentiment was an upgrade to "equal-weight" by bank Morgan Stanley. Meanwhile, the relegation of the real estate group's shares from the Eurozone's leading index, the EuroStoxx 50, was in line with expectations.

In the late morning, the shares were still up around half a percent at just under 22 euros - after a peak gain of 2.5 percent in the opening minutes. They thus outperformed the Stoxx Europe 600 Real Estate sector index, which rose moderately.

There was resistance at the interim high of 22.39 euros reached at the end of August, which the shares were initially unable to overcome. The last time the share price was higher was in March, before rapidly rising capital market interest rates further intensified the downward trend of the shares at that time.

While Morgan Stanley fears that the current operational resilience of the European real estate sector will weaken, the experts see isolated opportunities. In particular, they named "oversold" British sector stocks, for which they became more optimistic in some cases and now rate Hammerson, for example, with "Overweight". While they are now neutral on Vonovia in Germany, they continue to advise avoiding the shares of competitor Aroundtown due to high debt.

The sector had rallied recently, with Vonovia particularly strong. While the sector has gained about 9 percent since Aug. 21, the Dax member is up almost 17 percent in that time. This was driven by hopes that interest rates would soon stop rising and that the environment on the real estate market would pick up again.

However, the Vonovia share has still lost 22 percent of its value since its January high and more than half since its record high in 2020. This development is one of the reasons why the German real estate group has to leave the EuroStoxx. As announced late Friday, Vonovia is to be swapped there in two weeks for Italian sports car maker Ferrari./tih/mis/zb