The Dax opened the final session of the week in negative territory. Germany's blue-chip index shed 1% on Friday to trade at 24,219 points. Market sentiment was dampened by the lack of a long-awaited breakthrough in Iran negotiations. Furthermore, the summit between US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping failed to yield progress on the matter. Andreas Lipkow, chief market analyst at CMC Markets, noted that uncertainty surrounding Iran was triggering profit-taking. The Dax had gained over 2% during the previous two trading sessions.

As the week drew to a close, fears of a renewed military escalation in the Middle East returned to the forefront. In an interview with Fox News, US President Trump warned Iran that his patience was wearing thin. Investors expressed concern that the ceasefire in place since April could be at risk. On the energy market, prices for North Sea Brent and US WTI crude trended higher, both climbing more than 2% to 107.99 and 103.79 dollars per barrel, respectively.

Tech stocks, which had posted significant gains in recent days, were among the steepest decliners on the German equity market. Infineon shares dropped more than 6% in the Dax, while Aixtron traded 5.6% lower in the MDax. Conversely, shares of defense contractor Rheinmetall led the Dax gainers, rising 2.1%.

(Reported by Daniela Pegna, edited by Ralf Banser. For inquiries, please contact our editorial office at berlin.newsroom@thomsonreuters.com (for politics and economics) or frankfurt.newsroom@thomsonreuters.com (for corporate and markets).)