Frankfurt / Main (dpa) - The Dax came under pressure on the so-called big expiry day.
After a cautious start, the German leading index fell by 1.33 percent to 15,517.80 points by early Friday afternoon.
At lunchtime, contracts on indices had expired on the futures exchanges.
At the close of trading, options and futures on individual stocks expire.
With the losses this Friday, the Dax has moved a little back from its record high of a little more than 15,800 points reached on Monday.
On a weekly basis, there are signs of a minus of more than one percent.
The MDax lost initial gains on Friday and recently lost 0.35 percent to 34,101.26 points.
In the course of trading, the index of medium-sized stocks had reached a new record at almost 34,389 points.
The EuroStoxx 50, the leading index in the Eurozone, fell 1.3 percent.
There are four major expiry dates a year, on the third Friday of March, June, September and December. On these dates, share prices and indices can fluctuate noticeably without significant company or economic news. Stronger price fluctuations on such days are particularly evident in the case of equity heavyweights in the corresponding indices.
On this Friday, profit-taking shaped the market after the latest record highs, wrote Timo Emden, market analyst from the analysis company Emden Research. Meanwhile, the statements of the US Federal Reserve on Wednesday evening remained a topic of conversation. The Fed is continuing its extremely loose monetary policy for the time being, but has signaled a prospective interest rate hike. Investors are concerned about this development, because higher interest rates can reduce the attractiveness of stocks compared to fixed-income securities. In addition, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell indicated that a debate has begun in the Monetary Policy Committee on reducing the billion-dollar asset purchases to support the economy.
The monetary policy decisions from Washington also have their good side, commented market analyst Jochen Stanzl from the trading house CMC Markets.
On the one hand, rising interest rates have reduced the pension provisions of large companies, which strengthens their balance sheets.
On the other hand, the US dollar is rising.
Since commodities are usually traded in dollars, this could trigger falling commodity prices, which would ease the inflationary pressures that have just emerged.
At the end of the Dax, the shares of the consumer goods group Henkel lost almost five percent and thus resumed their recent downward trend.
Analyst Iain Simpson of the British investment bank Barclays lowered his estimate for earnings per share for the current year due to cost pressures from raw materials.
For the Brenntag papers listed in the MDax, there was an increase of around two percent.
The chemicals trader expects more profit for the current year than before.
The euro last cost 1.1886 US dollars.
The European Central Bank had set the reference rate on Thursday afternoon at 1.1937 dollars.
On the bond market, the current yield fell from minus 0.28 percent the previous day to minus 0.31 percent.
The Rex bond index rose 0.12 percent to 144.73 points.
The Bund future fell by 0.02 percent to 172.49 points.
© dpa-infocom, dpa: 210616-99-12863 / 12
