BERLIN, Sept. 17 (Xinhua) -- German stocks were off to a shaky start on Thursday, with the benchmark DAX index losing 165.19 points, or 1.25 percent, opening at 13,060.18 points.

All of Germany's largest 30 companies recorded losses at the start of trading. Pharmaceutical company Merck decreased the least with minus 0.60 percent, followed by dialysis specialist Fresenius Medical Care (FMC) with minus 0.78 percent and technology giant Siemens with minus 0.84 percent.

On Thursday, Swiss bank Credit Suisse raised the price target for Merck from 125 euros (about 147 U.S. dollars) to 140 euros (about 165 dollars) and left its rating at "Outperform." Shares of Merck have almost fully recovered from the COVID-19 crash in March and were trading at around 124 euros (about 146 dollars).

Shares in Continental fell by 2.25 percent. The German automotive supplier was the biggest loser at the start of trading on Thursday.

Unfilled orders in Germany's important manufacturing sector in July increased slightly by 0.1 percent on the previous month, the German Federal Statistical Office (Destatis) announced on Thursday.

While domestic orders not yet completed decreased by 0.3 percent in July, unfilled orders by international customers were up 0.3 percent month-on-month, according to Destatis.

Exports of German electric vehicles increased by 72 percent to 99,000 in 2019 compared with the previous year, Destatis also announced on Thursday. Almost a quarter of all German exports of electric vehicles had gone to Norway.

The yield on German ten-year bonds went down 0.005 percentage points to minus 0.484 percent, while the euro was trading almost unchanged at 1.1816 dollars, increasing by 0.01 percent on Thursday morning.