Europe midday: Stocks waiver ahead of key central bank decisions
Stocks on the Continent are under selling pressure as investors digest the heavy losses seen on Wall Street last Friday.
In the run-up to the end of the year, investors around the world were also waiting on policy decisions from several of the world's main central banks, including the US Federal Reserve, on Wednesday, and the Bank of England and Bank of Japan, both on the next day.
On that note, Chris Beauchamp at IG was telling clients: "European indices are on the slide this morning, as a healthy dose of scepticism creeps into the market sentiment ahead of a week dominated by central bankers. On a day devoid of any meaningful data points, traders have on eye on Wednesday’s FOMC meeting, whether the dot plot is expected to lay out the rate pathway in the wake of an easing in the hawkish tone set out by Powell & co.."
As of 1235 GMT, the benchmark Stoxx 600 was down by 0.62% or 2.15 points at 345.06, alongside a drop of 0.51% or 55.14 points to 10,809.83 for the German Dax while Paris's Cac-40 was sliding by 0.65% or 31.62 points to 4,822.08.
In parallel, the yield on the benchmark 10-year Italian government note was edging up by one basis point to 2.95%, even as European Commission spokeswoman, Margaritis Schinas, said that talks between Brussels and the government in Rome were continuing apace.
Significantly, at the weekend Italy's Prime Minister, Giuseppe Conte, and the country's two deputy PMs, Matteo Salvini and Luigi di Maio, agreed to lower the target for the 2019 budget deficit from 2.4% to 2.04%.
Elsewhere on the economic front, Eurostat reported that on a harmonised basis the year-on-year rate of advance in consumer prices in the Eurozone retreated from 2.2% for October to just 1.9% in November (consensus: 2.0%), which was one tenth of a percentage point less than the preliminary reading.
Still ahead for later in the session, at 1400 GMT the Belgian central bank was scheduled to publish its consumer confidence gauge for the month of December.