Europe open: Tech stocks sink, Italian issues jump

European technology stocks have gotten caught in Monday's downdraft in the US technology space after American regulators agreed to look into possible anti-competitive behaviour on the part of its corporate giants.

The resulting losses were weighing on stock markets across the Continent, save in Italy, where the Prime Minister's warning that he would step down if the ruling parties did not put an end to their constant "electioneering" was triggering gains.

Traders' main concern nevertheless continued to be the ongoing US-China trade feud, although the focus on Tuesday was expected to be on central banks, with a preliminary reading on euro area inflation for May due out later likely to factor heavily into the European Central Bank's policy deliberations on Thursday.

On that note, Michael Hewson, chief market analyst at CMC Markets UK, told clients: "Further upside in markets could well be challenging unless there is a change to the macroeconomic picture, something that is starting to look increasingly unlikely, given that central banks are now appear to be shifting onto a more dovish footing."

The benchmark Stoxx 600 was dipping 0.21% to 369.76, alongside a 0.25% retreat for the Cac-40 to 5,228.51, but Milan's FTSE Mibtel was adding 0.65% and trading at 20,002.72.

And the German Dax had managed to reverse earlier losses to trade higher so that as of 0853 BST it was climbing 0.19% to 11,815.86.

On the economic calendar for Tuesday, at 1000 BST Eurostat was set to publish a preliminary reading on Eurozone consumer prices for the month of May.

Consensus expectations were for the year-on-year rate in core euro area CPI in the month of May to dip from 1.3% in April to 1.0% for May.