Investing.com - European stocks pushed lower on Monday, as concerns over financial troubles in Spain and Greece continued to dampen market sentiment, while trade was expected to remain light with markets in the U.S. closed as a result of Hurricane Sandy.
During European afternoon trade, the EURO STOXX 50 tumbled 1.01%, France’s CAC 40 plunged 1.08%, while Germany’s DAX 30 dropped 0.74%.
Investors remained cautious amid ongoing uncertainty over whether Spain is preparing to request a bailout from its euro zone partners, which would activate a bond buying program by the European Central Bank.
Meanwhile, doubts over whether Greece can meet austerity targets demanded by the troika mounted after the country’s opposition leaders said his party would vote against an austerity package expected to go before parliament later this week.
Trading activity was expected to remain thin on Monday, as a result of the first unscheduled, market-wide shut down since September 2001, as Hurricane Sandy approached the northeastern U.S.
Financial stocks extended losses, as shares in French lenders BNP Paribas and Societe Generale tumbled 1.20% and 1.95%, while Germany's Deutsche Bank and Commerzbank plunged 1.19% and 1.62% respectively.
Peripheral lenders also pushed lower, with Italian banks Unicredit and Intesa Sanpaolo plummeting 2.87% and 2.52%, while Spains's BBVA and Banco Santander dropped 1.51% and 1.40%.
On the upside, French retailer Carrefour saw shares climb 0.81%, after saying it agreed to sell its Colombian operations to Chile-based Cencosud for EUR2 billion, including debt, by the end of the year.
In London, FTSE 100 slid 0.68%, mostly weighed by losses in financial stocks, while data showed that U.K. bank lending rose at the fastest pace in more than four-and-a-half years in September, while mortgage approvals also came in higher than expected.
Shares in Barclays tumbled 1.82% and Lloyds Banking retreated 1.61%, while the Royal Bank of Scotland and HSBC Holdings dropped 1.42% and 0.61% respectively.
Earlier in the day, the RBS said that it put Ken Choy, a director in its emerging markets foreign exchange trading unit, on leave, as part of an internal probe into the manipulation of non-deliverable forwards, a derivative traders use to speculate on the movement of currencies that are subject to domestic foreign exchange restrictions.
Elsewhere, mining stocks were also on the downside, as Rio Tinto and BHP Billiton slumped 1.59% and 1.35%, extending earlier losses, while copper producers Xstrata and Kazakhmys plunged 1.26% and 0.77% respectively.
In the U.S., equity markets pointed to a lower open. The Dow Jones Industrial Average futures pointed to a 0.67% drop, S&P 500 futures signaled a 0.66% decline, while the Nasdaq 100 futures indicated a 0.87% loss.
Later in the day, the U.S. was to release government data on personal income, personal spending and core consumer inflation.
During European afternoon trade, the EURO STOXX 50 tumbled 1.01%, France’s CAC 40 plunged 1.08%, while Germany’s DAX 30 dropped 0.74%.
Investors remained cautious amid ongoing uncertainty over whether Spain is preparing to request a bailout from its euro zone partners, which would activate a bond buying program by the European Central Bank.
Meanwhile, doubts over whether Greece can meet austerity targets demanded by the troika mounted after the country’s opposition leaders said his party would vote against an austerity package expected to go before parliament later this week.
Trading activity was expected to remain thin on Monday, as a result of the first unscheduled, market-wide shut down since September 2001, as Hurricane Sandy approached the northeastern U.S.
Financial stocks extended losses, as shares in French lenders BNP Paribas and Societe Generale tumbled 1.20% and 1.95%, while Germany's Deutsche Bank and Commerzbank plunged 1.19% and 1.62% respectively.
Peripheral lenders also pushed lower, with Italian banks Unicredit and Intesa Sanpaolo plummeting 2.87% and 2.52%, while Spains's BBVA and Banco Santander dropped 1.51% and 1.40%.
On the upside, French retailer Carrefour saw shares climb 0.81%, after saying it agreed to sell its Colombian operations to Chile-based Cencosud for EUR2 billion, including debt, by the end of the year.
In London, FTSE 100 slid 0.68%, mostly weighed by losses in financial stocks, while data showed that U.K. bank lending rose at the fastest pace in more than four-and-a-half years in September, while mortgage approvals also came in higher than expected.
Shares in Barclays tumbled 1.82% and Lloyds Banking retreated 1.61%, while the Royal Bank of Scotland and HSBC Holdings dropped 1.42% and 0.61% respectively.
Earlier in the day, the RBS said that it put Ken Choy, a director in its emerging markets foreign exchange trading unit, on leave, as part of an internal probe into the manipulation of non-deliverable forwards, a derivative traders use to speculate on the movement of currencies that are subject to domestic foreign exchange restrictions.
Elsewhere, mining stocks were also on the downside, as Rio Tinto and BHP Billiton slumped 1.59% and 1.35%, extending earlier losses, while copper producers Xstrata and Kazakhmys plunged 1.26% and 0.77% respectively.
In the U.S., equity markets pointed to a lower open. The Dow Jones Industrial Average futures pointed to a 0.67% drop, S&P 500 futures signaled a 0.66% decline, while the Nasdaq 100 futures indicated a 0.87% loss.
Later in the day, the U.S. was to release government data on personal income, personal spending and core consumer inflation.