Europe open: Stocks hit as China revises coronavirus cases higher

Stocks took a hit on Thursday after Chinese authorities revised their methodology for reporting coronavirus cases, leading to a sharp upward revision.

The change resulted in an almost 15,000 person increase in the number of reported cases.

Chris Beauchamp at IG said the change made the charts showing infection rates look "much more worrying [...] putting the gains of the past few days in doubt."

Nonetheless, Beauchamp also noted the resilience in assets such as the Australian dollar and oil futures, which would seem to show that traders weren't panicking.

"Encouragingly, the number of recoveries is also on the rise, providing some hope that the situation is still moving in the right direction."

As of 1030 GMT, the pan-European Stoxx 600 was down 0.51% at 429.13, while the Dax was 1.02% lower to 13,678.35 and the FTSE Mibtel was giving back 0.92% to 24,763.12.

Commerzbank was near the top of the leaderboard on the Stoxx 600 after unveiling plans for further cost-cutting alongside what it described as "stable" operating profits in the fourth quarter and a "significant" increase in its common equity Tier 1 ratio to 13.4%.

Shares of Deutsche Bank were continuing to push higher alongside.

Front month Brent crude oil futures were 0.94% lower to $55.27 a barrel on the ICE, partly due to reports of a Saudi output increase in January which analysts said showed the Kingdom was not willing to go it alone on production curbs.

In economic news, INSEE reported a large and unexpected drop in the ILO unemployment rate for the fourth quarter to 8.1% from 8.6% over the prior three-month stretch (consensus: 8.5%).

Further east, Germany's ministry of finance confirmed that the year-on-year rate of harmonised consumer prices was steady in January at 1.6%.