European Stocks Close Broadly Lower On Growth Worries, Political Uncertainty

(RTTNews) - European stocks closed lower on Friday amid concerns about slowing Chinese growth, deepening Sino-U.S. trade tensions, political uncertainty in France, and mixed corporate earnings updates.

Lingering uncertainty over U.S. President Joe Biden's path to victory in the presidential race, a lack of Chinese stimulus measures to revive growth and a widespread Microsoft outage that hit services from airlines, banks and financial services curbed investors' appetite for risk.

The pan European Stoxx 600 fell 0.77%. The U.K.'s FTSE 100 ended down 0.6%, Germany's DAX lost 1% and France's CAC 40 closed lower by 0.69%, while Switzerland's SMI lost 0.61%.

Among other markets in Europe, Austria, Belgium, Finland, Netherlands, Poland, Spain and Sweden ended weak. Norway edged down marginally.

Denmark, Greece, Iceland, Portugal, Russia and Turkiye closed higher.

In the UK market, Burberry Group plunged more than 7%. Spirax Group shares ended down 5.74%. Beazley, JD Sports Fashion, Entain, Ashtead Group, Prudential, Weir Group, Easyjet, Glencore, Rio Tinto, Anglo American Plc, Croda International, M&G and Shell lost 1 to 3.3%.

Marks & Spencer rallied 3%. Rolls-Royce Holdings gained 2.65%, while Antofagasta, Howden Joinery, Diploma and Smith (DS) ended higher by 1 to 1.2%.

Hargreaves Lansdown edged up marginally. The company reported £1.6 billion in new business for the quarter and managed a record £155.3 billion in assets, but its shares fell over 1%.

In the German market, Sartorius tanked 15.2% after the pharmaceutical equipment supplier cut its full-year guidance.

Zalando and Infineon both ended nearly 4% down. Continental, Hannover Rueck, Qiagen, Bayer, Munich RE, Porsche, BASF, Adidas, Daimler Truck Holding, BMW and Merck lost 2 to 3%.

Siemens Energy climbed about 2.3%. MTU Aero Engines, SAP and Vonovia posted modest gains.

In the French market, Unibail Rodamco ended down 4.6%. STMicroElectronics closed lower by about 3.7%. Teleperformance, Stellantis, Renault, Pernod Ricard, ArcelorMittal, TotalEnergies, LVMH and Publicis Groupe ended lower by 1.5 to 2.5%.

Dassault Systemes, Schneider Electric, Orange and Airbus Group posted moderate gains.

On the data front, U.K. retail sales logged a notable decline in June amid election uncertainty and poor weather, data showed.

Retail sales decreased 1.2% month-on-month in June, in contrast to the 2.9% increase posted in May, the Office for National Statistics said. Sales were expected to log a moderate 0.4% fall.

Separately, a monthly survey from GfK showed that British consumer sentiment improved in July. The consumer confidence index rose to -13 in July from -14 in June.

The euro area current account balance showed a surplus of EUR 37 billion in May, which was unchanged from the previous month.

Meanwhile, ECB Governing Council member and Bank of France President, Francois Villeroy de Galhau, said today there is more uncertainty on growth than a few months ago and that two additional interest-rate cuts in 2024 sound reasonable.

Similarly, ECB Governing Council member Gediminas Šimkus also said he agreed with the idea of having two more cuts this year as markets predict.