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BERLIN, June 25 (Xinhua) -- German stocks were almost unchanged at the start of trading on Thursday, with the benchmark DAX index growing by just 8.31 points, or 0.07 percent, opening at 12,102.25 points.

The biggest winner among Germany's largest 30 companies at the start of trading was German pharmaceutical giant Bayer, increasing by 2.54 percent, followed by utility RWE with 0.64 percent and chemical and consumer goods company Henkel with 0.61 percent.

On Wednesday, Bayer said it has reached a 10.3-billion-U.S. dollar settlement to deal with thousands of U.S. lawsuits over its glyphosate-based weedkiller, Roundup.

"The Roundup settlement is the right action at the right time for Bayer to bring a long period of uncertainty to an end," said Werner Baumann, chief executive officer of Bayer.

Shares of Wirecard fell by 5.22 percent. The German financial service provider was the biggest loser at the start of trading on Thursday.

Consumer climate in Germany continued to recover in June, according to the monthly consumer climate study published by market research institute GfK.

"The faint light at the end of the tunnel, which was already apparent last month, is apparently getting somewhat brighter," said Rolf Buerkl, GfK consumer expert, adding that consumers in Germany were recovering from the "shock" of the coronavirus pandemic thanks to the "rapid reopening of the German economy and society."

New orders in Germany's main construction industry in April increased by 2.7 percent on the previous month and declined by 5.3 percent year-on-year, the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis) announced on Thursday.

The yield on German 10-year bonds went down 0.022 percentage points to minus 0.456 percent, and the euro was trading almost unchanged at 1.1254 U.S. dollars, declining by 0.01 percent on Thursday morning. Enditem