Europe open: Stocks hit by very weak October PMIs

Stocks are sporting a small bounce in early trading, thanks to a late bounce on Wall Street that saw the main US stockmarket gauges finish well-off their intra-day lows the day before.

But weak readings on euro area manufacturing and services sector activity in October were dampening investor sentiment.

"Today's flash manufacturing and services PMIs from France and Germany have reinforced concerns about a slowing European economy ahead of tomorrow's ECB rate meeting, where ECB President Mario Draghi will undoubtedly be asked as to where he is seeing this evidence of inflationary pressure, that he’s talked about recently, given that core prices have remained resolutely below 1%," said Michael Hewson, chief market analyst at CMC Markets UK.

On the back of that economic data, as of 1023 BST the benchmark Stoxx 600 was up by 0.33% or 1.17 points at 355.23, alongside a 0.20% or 21.47 point advance to 11,293.98 for the German Dax while the FTSE Mibtel was edging lower by 0.02% or 3.69 points to 18,798.55.

In parallel, euro/dollar was under water, falling 0.8% to 1.14167 on the back of Wednesday's weak economic releases.

Meanwhile, yields on benchmark Italian 10-year BTPs were down by six basis points to 3.54%.

IHS Markit's so-called 'composite' Purchasing managers' Index for Eurozone output in manufacturing and services fell from a reading of 54.1 for September to 52.7 in October - a 25-month low.

It was also far weaker than the 54.0 reading the consensus had penciled-in.

The survey compiler blamed the export-led slowdown for the weak print, saying that it was continuing to spread out into services. Notably, price pressures remained near seven-year highs.

Commenting on the data, Chris Williamson at IHS Markit said: "The survey will make for uncomfortable reading at the ECB. Although the survey's price gauges remain elevated and close to seven-year highs, the headline PMI has fallen to a level that would historically be consistent with a bias towards loosening monetary policy in order to prevent any further deterioration of economic growth."

On the corporate side of things, the market spotlight was on Deutsche Bank, which reported modestly weaker-than-expected third quarter revenues of €6.175bn and lowered its forecast for full-year sales, predicting a small decline.

For later in the session, investors were eyeing quarterly updates from US automaker Tesla and Wall Street tech darling chip-maker AMD.

Also due out were later were figures for new home sales in September and the latest US Federal Reserve Beige book.