Interest rate concerns put pressure on the Dax on Friday. In the first hour of trading, the leading German index lost 1.27 percent to 15,336.19 points. In doing so, he followed the weak guidelines from overseas – a minimal profit is emerging on a weekly basis.

The MDax for medium-sized companies lost 1.23 percent to 28,670.32 points. The Eurozone leading index EuroStoxx 50 fell by 1.28 percent to 4242.15 points.

In New York, share prices fell on Thursday. The Asian stock exchanges followed on Friday. Interest rate worries are back on investors' minds after US producer prices fell less than hoped for in January. At the same time, initial jobless claims fell surprisingly. So the US Federal Reserve did not send any signal from the labor market that it had to change its rate hike course to combat inflation.

On the company side, the focus was on the business figures of Allianz and Mercedes-Benz. The insurer posted a record operating profit, exceeding analyst expectations. Nevertheless, the shares lost more than three percent as the Dax tail light. Stockbrokers spoke of generally solid numbers as usual - "but nothing more".

At the Stuttgart automaker, profit and sales growth and the announcement of a billion-dollar share buyback program resulted in a price increase of almost two and a half percent. The titles led the very short list of winners in the leading index and cost as much as they did almost a year ago.

A negative analyst statement weighed on Deutsche Post shares. The papers of the logistics group lost 2.8 percent after the US bank JP Morgan downgraded them as part of an industry study and now advises them to be underweight. In view of the clearly falling air freight rates, expert Samuel Bland justified his new vote by remaining cautious about the express division of the logistics group and, in view of the collective bargaining, increasingly worried about the letter and parcel business.