European shares slipped on Thursday, driven by gloomy sentiment on renewed worries around China’s property sector and mixed quarterly results.
The pan-European STOXX 600 index edged down 0.4% by 0710 GMT, retreating from its highest level in six weeks. Asian stocks were knocked lower by news about the collapse of a $2.6 billion asset sale at heavily indebted developer China Evergrande Group.
The losses were led by miners, automakers and industrial stocks, in tandem with growing nervousness around a slate of corporate earnings set for Thursday and the weeks to follow.
Swiss engineering and tech group ABB fell 3.4% on lowering its full-year sales forecast after warning of shortages of components.
AB Volvo was down 2.1% after its profit beat expectations but warned that persisting chip shortages hampered the truck maker’s production.
Barclays slipped 0.6% even as the British bank posted a bumper third-quarter performance.
The FTSE MIB climbed down by 0.24% to 26,517.20. In the cash markets, the DAX Germany was trading down 0.19% to 15,491.65. CAC 40 in France fell by 0.41% to 6,677.37 while the FTSE 100 in the U.K. were down by 0.35% to 7,196.35. ,at the time of writing.