The Dax gave way on Monday. The leading German index ended trading with minus 0.56 percent to 14,447.61 points. US economic data were again better than expected, but only temporarily fueled concerns about high inflation and rising interest rates in the afternoon. The Dax quickly made up some of the losses. The MDax of medium-sized stocks lost 1.07 percent to 25,903.45 points.

Good economic data would be rewarded again, investors would now prefer a robust economy to the arguments of the US Federal Reserve for the rate hike cycle, wrote analyst Konstantin Oldenburger from CMC Markets. "What investors absolutely don't want to see is a deep recession looming."

Last week, the Dax missed the ninth consecutive week of gains by just a few points, although on Friday it had meanwhile reached another high since June and defied a strong US jobs report.

Course debacle at Flatexdegiro

Flatexdegiro investors experienced a price debacle at the start of the week. After the profit warning from the online broker that became known at the weekend and criticism from the German financial regulator Bafin, which had identified deficiencies in the organization and corporate management during a special audit, the price of the paper listed in the SDax small-cap index collapsed by 37 percent.

At the end of the Dax, the Bayer titles continued their recent series of losses with minus 3.2 percent. It weighed on a canceled buy rating from Bank of America. After its recent high since mid-August at the end of the MDax, Rational has gone down by eight percent. Here, too, Bank of America had expressed skepticism about the large kitchen outfitter.

The papers of the auto supplier Vitesco were the daily winners in the SDax with plus 5.2 percent after the US bank JPMorgan had upgraded them as part of an industry study.

The leading eurozone index, the EuroStoxx 50, fell by 0.54 percent to 3956.53 points on Monday, and the leading stock exchange in Paris also fell, while London closed slightly higher. The leading US index, the Dow Jones Industrial, was clearly lower at the end of trading in Europe.

Strong US economic data weighed on the euro. After the Dax closed, the common currency cost 1.0509 US dollars. The European Central Bank set the reference rate at 1.0587 (Friday: 1.0538) dollars, the dollar cost 0.9446 (0.9489) euros.

On the bond market, the current yield rose from 1.75 percent on Friday to 1.80 percent. The Rex pension index fell by 0.36 percent to 128.72 points. The Bund future lost 0.48 percent to 141.74 points.