After a successful week so far, the Dax ran out of steam on Friday. In rather listless trading, the leading German index hovered around the 14,500 point mark by midday, which it had regained the previous day for the first time since June. Most recently, an increase of 0.11 percent was recorded at 14,555.62. The drivers of the most recent recovery were the positive signals from the US Federal Reserve, which is now proposing a somewhat more moderate rate hike.

The MDax of medium-sized stocks reduced its discount to 0.19 percent at 25,898.99 points by Friday afternoon. The EuroStoxx 50, the leading barometer for the euro zone, rose by 0.25 percent.

On the company side, Deutsche Bank was at the top of the Dax in Germany at noon, which after an upgrade by RBC climbed to its highest level since the end of May - most recently the plus was 1.2 percent. After the announcement of a takeover, Heidelberg Materials rose in price by half a percent, and at EUR 52.84 the shares are still just below their high for the month.

Uniper shares lost almost 14 percent at the end of the SDax. Since Tuesday's high, shares have fallen nearly 45 percent after nearly doubling in four trading days. After the announcement of another billion-dollar capital injection from the federal government, critical voices from analysts, who consider the price jump to be unjustified, are increasing. According to a negative study by Berenberg Bank, Fielmann's shares fell by more than 6 percent to EUR 35.26.