Europe midday: Stocks slip amid weak data

Stocks on the Continent are slipping lower as somewhat wary investors pause for breath and assess the latest economic data.

"While we are greeted by a sea of red this morning, that fails to reflect the wider optimism over the possibility of a US-China deal and the less hawkish Fed stance, as reiterated by Powell yesterday," said IG's Chris Beauchamp.

As of 1203 GMT, the benchmark Stoxx 600 was down by 0.44% at 371.99, alongside a drop of 0.52% to 11,480.78 for the German Dax, while Milan's FTSE Mibtel was edging higher by 0.06% to 20,475.64.

Alongside, Sterling was running up by a further 0.53% to 1.1698, with investors increasingly convinced that the risk of a 'no deal' Brexit was now lower after the Prime Minister committed to any such move being subject to Parliamentary approval.

Commenting on the moves in the pound, Beauchamp added: "Brexit remains front and centre for European markets, with the pound approaching a new seven month high after Theresa May largely allayed fears over a potential no-deal Brexit."

In parallel, front month Brent crude oil futures were bouncing back by 1.317% to $66.08 a barrel on the ICE following the previous session's drubbing.

On the economic front, data published on Wednesday hinted at a still soft outlook for growth according to analysts.

According to Eurostat, the rate of growth in euro area money supply slowed from annualised pace of 4.1% for December to 3.8% in January (consensus: 4.0%).

The same report also revealed a slowdown in so-called 'narrow' money supply growth, from 6.6% to 6.2%.

That, said Claus Vistesen at Pantheon Macroeconomics, "suggests that headline GDP growth will rebound a bit in the next two quarters, from a very weak H2 2018, before edging down to about 0.2% towards the end of 2019."

Similarly, the European Commission's industrial confidence index for February printed at -0.2, versus a reading of 0.7 for the month before (consensus: 0.2).