FRANKFURT (dpa-AFX) - Strong key figures for the fourth quarter and the year as a whole pushed the Rational share back above the round 700 euro mark on Thursday. In December, it had failed to clear this hurdle several times before profit-taking set in at the start of 2024. Now, the surprisingly presented preliminary quarterly report of the canteen kitchen equipment supplier delivered the possible liberating blow.

The share price rose by 7.1% to EUR 712.00 around midday. This put the share at the top of the MDax, the index for medium-sized stocks. It also easily left the 21-day moving line, currently at around 675.50 euros, which signals the short-term trend, behind and is currently heading towards its high for the year of 2023. Rational reached this at the end of August at 713.50 euros.

"Rational's figures are impressive," commented market expert Andreas Lipkow. They are also a further indication that investors should not write off China in 2024 either. "In contrast to the market in Europe, more and more factors are pointing to economic stabilization in China. Rational also benefited from this."

Analyst Sebastian Kuenne from the Canadian bank RBC spoke of another strong set of key figures for sales revenue and operating profit in the fourth quarter, which exceeded market expectations. Although he qualified that turnover also benefited from a one-off major order from Asia, profitability was "excellent despite challenging comparative figures from the previous year".

However, the Landsberg-based company did not comment on the current order trend in its report this morning. Prior to the figures, the RBC expert had argued that because the order backlog had fallen in the third quarter, lead times were now short and this could lead to under-utilization of capacity. "At least in the fourth quarter, this definitely did not happen and did not slow Rational down," the RBC expert now conceded./ck/nas/mis