European stocks reverse course as trade anxiety takes over; LSE tumbles

FILE PHOTO: The German share price index DAX graph is pictured at the stock exchange in Frankfurt, Germany - Reuters 

Reuters: European shares gave up early gains on Tuesday as worries about upcoming high-level US-China trade negotiations build, while the London Stock Exchange was on course for its worst day since 2016 after Hong Kong’s bourse abandoned its bid for the company.

All but one of the major European subsectors were trading lower by 0815 GMT.

The technology index was up about 0.2%, buoyed by Nordic telecom companies Nokia Oyj and Ericsson after a report said the US government had suggested issuing credit to help the two companies compete with China’s Huawei.

“You can’t read too much into markets ebbing and flowing in either direction,” said David Madden, market analyst at CMC Markets. “Some traders are going to be sitting on their hands until we hear more from the situation with the US and China.”

The United States expanded its trade blacklist to include some of China’s top artificial intelligence startups on Monday, a day after a report said China might not agree on a broad trade deal.

The negative headlines dampened optimism fuelled by tariff concessions from both sides last month and kept investors on edge ahead of trade talks scheduled for this week. The pan-European STOXX 600 index slipped 0.3%, with Germany’s trade-sensitive DAX among the biggest decliners.

An unexpected rise in monthly industrial output in Germany had earlier provided a shimmer of hope that an expected contraction in Europe’s biggest economy in the third quarter would not be steep.

“There is certainly no reason to give the all-clear, but to breathe a sigh of relief, at least,” said Andreas Rees, economist at UniCredit. “After all, it has not become even worse in the already battered German industrial sector.”

Shares of London Stock Exchange Group dropped 6.2% to a near one-month low after Hong Kong’s bourse dropped its unsolicited $39 billion bid for the company.

Qiagen tumbled 20%, the most on the benchmark index, after the German biotech company said its CEO would step down and warned that third quarter preliminary sales will fall short of expectations.

In an upbeat spot were shares of Airbus, which rose 1.4% after the planemaker reported higher orders for the first nine months of the year, putting it well ahead of US rival Boeing Co.