With no prospect of an end to interest rate hikes in the foreseeable future, investors increasingly divested themselves of stocks on Thursday. The leading German index, the Dax, increased its losses by 1.20 percent around midday to a level of 14,286.07 points. The MDax lost 0.88 percent to 25,647.17 points, and the Eurozone leading index EuroStoxx 50 lost 1.3 percent in value.

As expected, the US Federal Reserve had raised interest rates by 0.50 percent the night before. Investors are critical of the currency watchdog's projections, which point to further interest rate hikes.

The background is the still very high inflation, which the European Central Bank (ECB) also has to deal with. That is why the interest rate decision by the ECB will be the focus of attention on Thursday, supplemented by those in Switzerland, Great Britain and Norway.

Positive price developments were rare in the three major indices of the Dax family. In the leading index, Deutsche Telekom, which is valued by investors as a defensive investment, did best at the previous day's level. In the MDax, Lufthansa and Fraport were positive exceptions. They continued their rallies with gains of up to 0.9 percent.

The losers' lists included stocks for which rising interest rates are seen as a problem. This includes parts of the technology sector as well as online stocks, because higher financing costs can slow down the growth of companies. Delivery Hero lost 4.6 percent in the MDax. From the SDax, the Auto1 titles fell by 6.2 percent.