FRANKFURT (dpa-AFX) - After the fireworks at Northern Data on Tuesday, disillusionment returned at the end of the week. The shares of the specialist for High Performance Computing (HPC) were slightly down for the week on Friday afternoon, after having recorded a weekly gain of more than 38 percent in the meantime.

The jump in the share price on Tuesday was triggered by a report that struck a chord with speculators on the booming topic of artificial intelligence (AI). The Bloomberg news agency reported that the company was talking to consultants about a US IPO in the areas of AI cloud computing and data centers. A valuation of around 10 to 16 billion US dollars had been mentioned.

The day before, analyst Tim Wunderlich from Hauck Aufhäuser Investment Banking had described around 8.5 billion euros as a more realistic assumption. Overall, he considers the rumors to be credible; a US bankruptcy would trigger a valuation boost.

However, there was no new fuel for the imagination and speculators withdrew again. With their price fireworks, the shares had only just shot up to their high for the year, but had not attracted any more buyers./ag/mis/jha/