After the significant recovery of the past few trading days, the Dax took a breather in the middle of the week.

Late on Wednesday morning, the leading German index was 0.03 percent higher at 12,769.55 points. The MDax of medium-sized German companies lost 0.52 percent to 23,129.08 points. The Eurozone leading index EuroStoxx 50 went up by around 0.7 percent.

"On the corporate side, market participants are longing for pleasant surprises in the form of solid quarterly reports. On the other hand, everything remains the same on the economic side," commented analyst Christian Henke from Broker IG. The US central bank will continue to adhere to its tight interest rate policy, and the European Central Bank is also likely to tighten interest rates.

Henke emphasized that the interest rate hikes had not really had an impact on inflation. "Sustainable bottoming out on the stock markets also requires a sustainable trend reversal in the inflation rate," said Henke.

Among the individual stocks, Sartorius shares came under selling pressure. The pharmaceutical and laboratory equipment supplier also recorded high growth in sales and profits in the third quarter, although the pace of growth has recently slowed. Company boss Joachim Kreuzburg therefore cut back on the sales target for 2022. After a recent significant price recovery, the papers fell to their lowest level since the beginning of July and were last listed 14.5 percent lower. This put them at the bottom of the Dax.

The filling and packaging system manufacturer Krones has raised its sales forecast for the current year significantly thanks to sustained good demand. The share, which is listed in the SDax, recently increased in price by 1.1 percent.

The diagnostics company Stratec is now expecting a decline in sales for 2022 due to a surprising increase in delivery backlogs. The share price fell by 2.1 percent.