European stocks slipped at the open on Friday on lingering worries about troubled property developer China Evergrande, with mining and retail stocks exposed to the Asian country among the biggest decliners.
The region-wide STOXX 600 index slipped 0.5% after a three-day run of gains. Miners, automakers and retailers fell more than 1% each.
Investors took some profits off the table after mid-week rally as a deadline for paying $83.5 million in bond interest passed without remark from Evergrande, concerns about which rocked financial markets earlier this week.
German sportswear makers Adidas and Puma fell 3.7% and 2.5%, respectively, after Nike cut its fiscal 2022 sales expectations and said it expects delays during the holiday shopping season, blaming the ongoing supply chain crunch.
Broadly, Germany’s DAX fell 0.7%, heading into the weekend when the country will vote to elect German chancellor Angela Merkel’s successor.
British drugmaker AstraZeneca jumped 3.2% after the company said its cancer drug Lynparza met its primary goal in a late-stage trial.
The FTSE MIB climbed down by 0.33% to 25,999.00. In the cash markets, the DAX Germany was trading down 0.64% to 15,536.65. CAC 40 in France fell by 0.84% to 6,645.37 while the FTSE 100 in the U.K. were down by 0.30% to 7,057.35. ,at the time of writing.
