European Shares Tumble As China’s COVID Crisis Worsens

European stocks tumbled on Monday to hit one-month lows due to worries surrounding China’s Covid resurgence, runaway inflation and the expected response by global central banks.

In economic releases, data showed earlier in the day that business confidence in Germany stabilized at a low level in April. The Ifo business-climate index rose to 91.8 points from 90.8 points in March.

The pan-European STOXX 600 index fell over 2 percent to 444, while the German DAX lost 1.8 percent and the U.K.’s FTSE 100 declined 2.2 percent.

France’s CAC 40 index was down 2.5 percent despite President Emmanuel Macron’s election victory over the weekend.

China-exposed commodity and luxury stocks were among the worst hit as fears grew that Beijing was on the verge of joining Shanghai in lockdowns.

Miners Anglo American and Glencore around 6 percent each while oil & gas firm BP Plc lost 5.4 percent and Royal Dutch Shell gave up 4.4 percent on concerns about waning demand from the top metals consumer.

French luxury goods company Kering tumbled 4.9 percent. Gaming group Ubisoft soared 6.3 percent on reports that the company is attracting takeover interest from buyout funds.

Dutch health technology company Philips plummeted 8.8 percent after its quarterly operating profit missed analyst estimates.

BBVA fell 2.6 percent after the Spanish lender raised the price it’s offering to shareholders of its Turkish unit. Shares of Turkish bank Garanti jumped 5.5 percent.

British Land was down about 2 percent. The property development and investment company said it had sold a 75 percent stake in the majority of its Paddington Central assets to Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund GIC for 694 million pounds ($885.9 million).

Source: Read Full Article