Investing.com – European stock markets were down on Tuesday after the release of poor U.K. housing data and as mining shares fell following a drop in metal prices.
During early European trade, France’s CAC 40 was down 0.14%; Germany's DAX slipped 0.25%; and the EURO STOXX 50 was down 0.28%.
Britain's FTSE 100 was down 0.35% after the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors said its U.K. house price balance showed fewer increases in values during February than economists had forecast.
Miners were among the worst performers, as Vedanta Resources dropped 1.69%, Chilean copper miner Antofagasta shed 1.36% and Xstrata lost 1.19%.
The outlook for U.S. markets, meanwhile, was also dim: Dow Jones Industrial Average futures indicated a drop of 0.28%, S&P 500 Index futures pointed to a slide of 0.28% and Nasdaq 100 Index futures indicated a decline of 0.33%.
Also Tuesday, official data showed that Switzerland's consumer price index rose 0.1% on a monthly basis in February, falling short of an expected rise of 0.2%.