Modupe Gbadeyanka
By Investors Hub
European stocks have moved notably lower on Monday, with airline and technology stocks coming under selling pressure after Ryanair warned on profits and China said it is in no hurry to resume trade talks with the U.S.
Alphabet Inc.’s Google has suspended business with Huawei and German chipmaker Infineon Technologies also reportedly suspended shipments to the Chinese telecom giant, adding another dimension to the U.S.-China trade war.
While the U.K?.s FTSE 100 Index has slumped by 0.9 percent, the German DAX Index and the French CAC 40 Index are both down by 1.6 percent.
Infineon shares have moved sharply lower on the day, while AMS and STMicroelectronics are also seeing substantial weakness.
German lender Deutsche Bank has slumped after reports that it ignored employees’ calls to report multiple transactions involving entities controlled by U.S. President Trump and his son-in-law Jared Kushner to a federal financial crimes watchdog.
Ryanair Holdings has also fallen after it reported its weakest annual profit in four years and warned of a worse trading environment.
Shares of Low & Bonar have plummeted after the performance materials group warned that its first-half results would be materially behind that of the prior year.
On the other hand, Nokia and Ericsson have shown strong moves to the upside on expectations they could benefit from Huawei’s difficulties.
In economic news, the euro area current account surplus dropped to a seasonally adjusted 25 billion euros in March from 28 billion euros in February due to a drop in primary income, data from the European Central Bank showed.
The visible trade surplus decreased to 24 billion euros from 26 billion euros, while the services surplus rose to 8 billion euros from 7 billion euros.
Survey data from IHS Markit showed British households’ financial wellbeing deteriorated at the fastest pace since September 2017.
The household finance index, which measures households’ overall perception of financial wellbeing, dropped to 42.5 in May from April’s three-month high of 43.8.
The score indicated the strongest level of pessimism towards current financial wellbeing among U.K. households since September 2017.
