Europe midday: Irish stocks pace losses after general election

Stocks across the Continent remained a tad lower with Irish and German stocks in focus amid the latest and unexpected political headlines in each country.

With about half the votes from the Irish general election at the weekend counted, it appeared that Sinn Fein had won the popular vote.

Meanwhile, in Germany the head of the CDU party, Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, Chancellor Angela Merkel's annointed successor, stepped down after politicians from her own ranks had voted with the far-right AfD in the state of Thuringia during the previous week.

News that the number of cases of the new Chinese coronavirus had surpassed 40,000 was also dampening sentiment.

As of 1401 GMT, the benchmark Stoxx 600 was trading lower by 0.16% to 423.68, alongside a 0.37% dip to 13,463.28 for the German Dax, while Milan's FTSE Mibtel was up 0.10% at 24,488.50.

Ireland's ISEQ All-Share index however was retreating by 1.11% to 7,072.71 and out on the Stoxx 600, shares in Bank of Ireland Group and AIB Group were the worst performers, with each falling by almost 6%.

Shares of Carl Zeiss Meditec, were also out of favour, despite the company having posted a 18.1% jump in first quarter earnings before interest and taxes to reach €56.8m.

Nonetheless, stock in the optical systems manufacturer remained near its record high.

To take note of, overnight the head of the World Health Organisation, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said he was worried by instances of the virus in people who hadn't traveled to China, a possible indication of more widespread transmission in other countries.

The toll on the Asian giant's economy was also rising, with Neil Shearing at Capital Economics slashing his forecast for the year-on-year rate of economic growth in China from 5.0% to 3.0%.

Linked to the above, analysts at Citi had estimated that each one percentage point "swing" in Chinese growth could shave 0.2 points off growth in Germany, Central Europe and Italy.

On a more upbeat note, the Sentix institute's gauge of euro area investor sentiment dipped from 7.6 for January to 5.2 in February (consensus: 5.9).

"This is the first survey in the Eurozone to fully reflect the coronavirus-scare, and it is showing few signs of a setback," Pantheon Macroeconomics's Claus Vistesen wrote in a research note to clients.

The latest reading on industrial production in Italy however made for grim reading, with ISTAT reporting that it shrank at a month-on-month pace of 2.6% (consensus: -0.6%).