Fears of an escalation in the Ukraine conflict spooked European equity investors on Friday.

The approaching turnaround in interest rates in the USA also weighed on the market.

The Dax fell at times by 2 percent to 15,601 points, the Euro-Stoxx-50 for the euro area fell 1.7 percent in the course of trading.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken recently made it clear that any border crossing by Russian troops into Ukraine would constitute aggression for the United States.

Such an incident would trigger a "prompt, serious and concerted response" from the Western Allies.

Russia has massed around 100,000 soldiers on the border with Ukraine, but denies accusations that it is preparing an invasion of the former Soviet republic.

Blinken and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov met on Friday to discuss the crisis.

The Moscow stock index RTS fell by around 4 percent at times.

Federal bonds in demand as a safe haven

In view of the ongoing tensions, investors turned to Bunds again. The prices of the titles, which are often used as a safe haven, rose, in return the yield fell to minus 0.064 percent, the lowest level in a week. On Wednesday, the federal yield climbed above the zero percent mark for the first time in almost three years. Fearing a rapid succession of rate hikes by the major central banks, investors had increasingly thrown government bonds out of their portfolios in recent weeks. Investors expected that the US Federal Reserve could raise interest rates as early as March, earlier than originally expected on the financial markets. ECB President Christine Lagarde recently emphasized that the European Central Bank does not have to be as aggressive in monetary policy as the Fed is likely to be.The euro was temporarily up 0.2 percent on Friday at $1.1332.

At the end of the week, Siemens Energy in particular came into focus on the German stock market.

The energy technology group has to make cutbacks in the forecasts due to ongoing problems at the Spanish wind power subsidiary Siemens Gamesa.

The shares in the Dax temporarily fell by 14 percent to EUR 19.74, marking the lowest level in more than a year.

Siemens Gamesa shares fell 12 percent in Madrid.

The rivals Nordex and Vestas also had to lose feathers.

Their shares lost 6.5 and 6 percent in price.

Netflix is ​​also clouding the mood

Nordic Entertainment also experienced a black day on the stock exchange after the streaming provider Netflix had given a gloomy outlook on new business.

The shares of the Swedish media and entertainment company fell at times around 8 percent in price.

Netflix only expects to add 2.5 million subscribers from January through March, which is less than half of what analysts were hoping for.

Citi analysts predicted the outlook would fuel speculation that the market for subscription-based video services was beginning to weaken.

Netflix shares fell by almost a fifth in after-hours trading, giving up almost all of the gains accumulated in the corona pandemic.