FRANKFURT (dpa-AFX) - After its strong performance the day before, the Dax started trading on Friday with slight losses. Profit-taking in US technology stocks probably caused investors in Germany to become more cautious for the time being. The leading index fell by 0.11 percent to 18,233.89 points in early trading. The major expiry on the futures markets, which could still cause fluctuations this Friday, did not initially leave any major traces.

The DAX has built up a small cushion against the 18,000-point mark in recent days. It is heading for a weekly gain of 1.3 percent. Although US technology stocks had crowned their record-breaking run in the S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 the previous day with further highs, this was followed by profit-taking. Nvidia had to relinquish the title of the world's most expensive company, which it had conquered on Tuesday, to Microsoft.

The MDax with the medium-sized stocks fell by 0.35 percent to 25,626.42 points on Friday. Investors also turned their attention to the sister index SDax, which has been around for 25 years. It was just in the red. Meanwhile, the Eurozone's leading index, the EuroStoxx 50, lost 0.2 percent to 4937.66 points./tih/jha/