Europe open: Stocks held back as investors play it cautious

European equity markets have begun the morning drifting slightly lower as investors keep their cards close to their chests ahead of several key risks events later in the week.

As of 1041 BST the benchmark Stoxx 600 was down by 0.34% to 390.70, alongside a retreat of 0.50% for Germany's Dax to 12,759.24 while the Cac-40 was slipping 0.31% to 5,291.53.

Among the events investors were watching out for were the European Central Bank's policy meeting on Thursday, alongside the General Elections and ex-FBI Director James Comey's testimony before a Senate panel.

"It’s quite normal to see this kind of behaviour when the latter part of the week is as busy as it is. We’re seeing a little bit of risk aversion in the markets today with European futures tracking similarly small losses across the US and Asia, Gold making modest gains to trade at six week highs and the yen making further advances," said Craig Erlam, senior market analyst at Oanda.

Against that backdrop, gold futures on COMEX were up by 0.67% to $1,291.30/oz..

In parallel, euro/dollar was edging lower by 0.05% to 1.1248 while front month Brent crude oil futures were off by 0.22% to $49.36 a barrel on the ICE.

Investor sentiment in the Eurozone edged higher in June, according to the Sentix institute, with its index of investor confidence gaining from 27.4 to 28.4 (consensus: 27.4).

That, Claus Vistesen at Pantheon Macroeconomics said, was compatible with a further gentle increase in the headline ZEW economic sentiment index which was set for release in the following week.

Euro area retail sales volumes edged higher by 0.1% month-on-month in April (consensus: 0.2%).

Germany's Delivery Hero AG, which was part-owned by Rocket Internet, said it was preparing a €450m flotation on the German market.

Societe Generale was looking to float up to 23% of its car leasing unit ALD Automotive this month, generating proceeds of possibly as high as €1.6bn.