European Stocks Plunge On Gloomy Global Outlook

(RTTNews) - European stocks tumbled Tuesday, extending recent losses as downbeat German and Chinese economic data fueled concerns about global growth.

Markets have been especially cautious this week, fearing the minutes of the most recent Federal Reserve meeting will show a bias toward raising U.S. interest rates ahead of schedule.

The minutes of the Fed's September meeting are due out Wednesday afternoon.

The Euro Stoxx 50 index of eurozone bluechip stocks dropped 1.8 percent, and is now negative for the year-to-date.

The German DAX plunged 1.34 percent, the French CAC 40 fell 1.81 percent and the FTSE 100 index of the U.K. lost 1.04 percent.

HeidelbergCement inched up 0.34 percent after Jefferies raised the stock to "Buy" from "Hold."

Suedzucker is adding 2.3 percent, following a positive broker recommendation.

Lufthansa fell 5 percent, and Commerzbank led big lenders lower by losing 2 percent.

Air France-KLM fell 4.5 percent, even as JPMorgan raised the stock to "Overweight" from "Underweight."

Rio Tinto added 0.8 percent after the miner rejected a takeover bid from Glencore.

Tesco climbed 3.3 percent. The retailer asked its commercial director Kevin Grace to step aside as part of the investigation begun two weeks ago, the Financial Times reported.

Cairn Energy rose 2 percent after announcing an oil discovery offshore Senegal.

In economic news, German industrial production declined at the fastest pace since January 2009, falling 4 percent month-on-month in August, underlining that the largest euro area economy is moving further down after contracting in the second quarter.

On Monday, the World Bank slashed its growth outlook for China to 7.4 percent this year, from a previous forecast of 7.6 percent.