Europe midday: Stocks dragged lower by downdraft in oil prices
Stocks on the Continent were being dragged lower by another slide in crude oil prices, even as investors braced for what were expected to be a grim set of economic data releases in the States.
Also dampening the mood was news of mixed progress on the coronavirus pandemic front.
Overnight, Italy's civil protection service reported a further slowdown in the rate of growth of Covid-19 cases, from 1,363 on Monday to 675 for Tuesday.
But in Spain, the number of new infections jumped from 3,045 on Tuesday to 5,092, with the government attributing the increase to increased testing and delayed reporting on account of Easter.
Against that backdrop, as of 1315 GMT the benchmark Stoxx 600 was down 1.73% to 328.12, alongside a 2.03% fall for the German Dax to 10,479.41, while the FTSE Mibtel was down 2.31% to 17,153.53.
Front month Brent crude oil futures meanwhile were retreating 4.4% to $28.36 a barrel on the ICE.
Triggering the slide, in its April oil market report, the International Energy Agency forecast a 29m barrel a day drop in global demand for that same month, while for the year as a whole demand was seen falling by 9.3m b/d.
Euro/dollar meanwhile was off by 0.84% to 1.0888.
There was little by the way of fresh economic data for investors.
Revised data from INSEE showed that on a harmonised consumer prices in France rose at a 0.8% year-on-year pace in March, up from a preliminary estimate of 0.7% but much lower than the 1.6% increase observed in February.
In Italy, ISTAT confirmed a decline in the year-on-year rate of inflation from 0.2% in February to 0.1% in March.