European stocks head lower on Evergrande woes, mixed earnings
21 Oct 2021
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.