European Stocks Fall on Planned Suspension of UK Parliament

By Investors Hub

European stocks are broadly lower on Wednesday, with modest weakness visible in the U.K. on news Prime Minister Boris Johnson is looking to suspend parliament from around mid-September.

The BBC reported that the Queen will be asked to suspend the U.K.’s Parliament days after lawmakers return from a summer break on September 3rd.

Under the plan by Johnson, all business would be suspended until a Queen’s speech on October 14 kicks off a new parliamentary session.

The pound fell nearly 1.1 percent against a basket of global currencies, marking its worst performance since late July.

While the U.K.?s FTSE 100 Index has fallen by 0.3 percent, the French CAC 40 Index and the German DAX Index are down by 1 percent and 1.1 percent, respectively.

The euro area’s government bond yields edged back towards record lows today after a widely-watched gauge of the U.S. Treasury yield curve inverted further on Tuesday.

Recession worries have hit tech stocks hard, with SAP, Infineon Technologies and AMS showing significant moves to the downside.

Meanwhile, BP Plc shares have jumped after the company agreed to sell its entire business in Alaska to a privately held oil and natural gas exploration and production company Hilcorp Alaska for $5.6 billion.

British American Tobacco has reversed early losses to turn higher, while Imperial Brands cut some losses as Philip Morris International confirmed it’s in talks with Altria Group regarding an all-stock merger of equals.

Luxury clothing retail company Ted Baker has edged up slightly after it agreed with Sojitz Infinity to create a retail license deal for Japan.

In economic news, German consumer confidence is set to remain unchanged in September, survey data from market research group GfK showed.

The forward-looking consumer sentiment index held steady at 9.7 in September. Economists had forecast the indicator to drop to 9.6.

Eurozone bank lending to households increased the most since early 2009 in July and money supply growth accelerated, data from the European Central Bank revealed.

Loans to households rose 3.4 percent year-on-year in July, slightly faster than the 3.3 percent increase in June. This was the fastest growth since January 2009.