Europe midday: Stocks in the red as investors assess Trump travel ban

European stocks were in the red on Monday, as investors’ assessed President Donald Trump’s curb on refugees and his travel ban on arrivals from predominantly Muslim countries entering the US.

At midday, the benchmark Stoxx Europe 600 was down 0.72% to 363.73, France’s CAC 40 fell 0.87% to 4,798.02 while Germany’s DAX was 0.72% lower to 11,728.69.

Meanwhile, West Texas Intermediate crude was down 0.26% to $53.31 a barrel and Brent crude was flat at $55.51.

On Friday, Trump put a 120-day hold on allowing refugees into the country, an indefinite ban on any refugees from Syria and a 90-day ban on citizens from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen. The ban also applies to anyone with dual nationality including any of those countries.

A petition in the UK gathered more than 1m signatures to stop a state visit for Trump, with protests planned in several cities across the country in response to his immigration ban.

Mike van Dulken, head of research at Accendo Markets, said: “Major equity indices are negative, as investors react to the implementation of yet another controversial executive order from the new resident of the White House. Trump's travel ban adds to the Mexican wall and his attempt to curb immigration and pursue a pro-America, anti-globalisation, anti-terror mandate.

“He's sticking to his pledges, adding to concerns that he goes all in and pins chunky import tariffs on China (and elsewhere?) to encourage Americans to buy domestic. A dollar sell-off has reversed leaving sterling and the euro where they were late Friday.”

Elsewhere, in France leftwing rebel Benoit Hamon beat centrist former Prime Minster Manuel Valls in the second round of Socialist party’s primary on Sunday. Recent polls suggest, however, that no Socialist candidate will make it to the second round in the French presidential race, with either centrist Emmanuel Macron or centre-right Francois Fillon likely to do battle with Front National’s Marine Le Pen.

Data showed that eurozone business and consumer confidence continued its resurgence in January, but analysts are wary that the momentum could be hampered by uncertain outcomes from upcoming elections in the Netherlands, France, Germany and possibly Italy.

The European Commission’s Economic Sentiment Indicator rose to 108.2 from 107.8 in December, which was the highest level since March 2011. This was more than the 107.9 expected.

Energy and basic-resource shares were the worst performers as crude and copper prices retreated, with the Stoxx 600 sub-indexes for the sectors down 1.2% and 1.4%, respectively.

On the corporate front, FTSE 100 telecoms group Vodafone up 2.61% after confirming that it is in talks over merging its Indian business with Idea Cellular, which is part of the Aditya Birla Group.

Engineer WS Atkins was 5% higher following a report in The Times that it has been approached by US firm CH2M for a possible $4bn merger.

Randgold Resources fell 0.76% despite saying it was confident of topping production guidance of 670,000 oz of gold for 2016 from its Loulo-Gounkoto mining complex in Mali, with another record quarter at the end of the year.

Lloyds Banking Group was also down 0.59% after the UK government cut its stake in the bank to just under 5%, or 3.57bn shares, as it looks to take the bank private again in the next few months. This is down from 4.24bn shares previously.