European stocks tumbled on Monday as trade-war fears continued to weigh and investors looked ahead to Wednesday’s meeting of the U.S. Federal Reserve as well as the Bank of England policy meeting on Thursday for directional cues.
The pan-European Stoxx Europe 600 index was down 0.7 percent at 375.02 in late opening deals after rising 0.2 percent on Friday.
The German DAX was down 1 percent, France’s CAC 40 index was moving down 0.8 percent and the U.K.’s FTSE 100 was down over 1 percent.
Mining giant Rio Tinto tumbled 2.5 percent on reports that it has hired UBS to explore a possible public listing of its Pacific Aluminum smelting business on the Australian Stock Exchange.
Melrose Industries fell over 1 percent. The company announced that its final offer to GKN Plc. of 466 pence in value today and 60 percent of future value creation is clearly superior to the hasty break-up being pursued by the GKN Board.
Micro Focus International shares slumped as much as 52 percent. The software product group cut its fiscal 2018 revenue forecast after posting weak revenues for the first-half.
Hammerson soared 26 percent. The British landlord said it has rebuffed a takeover offer from French mall operator Klépierre. Shares of Klepierre fell almost 3 percent in Paris.
Barclays shares jumped around 4 percent after activist investor Sherborne took a 5 percent stake in the bank.
German consumer goods firm Henkel fell as much as 5 percent after saying it had a slow start into 2018 due to delivery difficulties in North America.
French building materials firm Saint-Gobain was marginally lower after it acquired Italian glass systems specialist Logli Massimo.
