The US labor market report for December, which was expected in the afternoon, caused nervousness on the German stock market on Friday. According to Steffen Innes, Managing Partner at SPI Asset Management, the positive data on the labor market in the world's largest economy, which has already been published this week, increases the importance of the upcoming report.

In the first few minutes of trading, the Dax fell by 0.06 percent to 14,427.87 points, which would add up to around four percent of the gains in the first week of trading of the year. The MDax for medium-sized companies fell by 0.18 percent to 26,624.36 points on Friday. The Eurozone leading index EuroStoxx 50 fell by 0.10 percent to 3955.59 points.

"With the labor market report, the first stock market highlight of the still young year is coming up in the USA," wrote portfolio manager Thomas Altmann from asset manager QC Partners. Unexpectedly robust data could prompt the Fed to raise interest rates for longer and more generally and then leave them at elevated levels for a longer period of time. The day before, the ADP labor market report gave a foretaste of this scenario. For investors in the stock market, such prospects are not very enticing, as they make other forms of investment, such as bonds, more attractive.