Europe midday: Stocks edge lower amid mixed news flow
Stocks on the Continent were drifting lower at the end of the week, weighed down by what appeared to be bad news for a drug that many had hoped might prove to be more effective against the Covid-19 virus.
Overnight, the World Health Organisation mistakenly published the draft results of a clinical study in China that said Gilead Science's Remdesivir drug showed no benefits for patients with coronavirus, although the company disputed the findings.
Investors were also digesting news that European Union leaders had agreed to create a reconstruction fund for the bloc, although the details including the final amount of funding to be made available, were left to be hashed out over coming months.
Against that backdrop, as of 1415 GMT, the benchmark Stoxx 600 was 0.29% lower at 332.28, alongside a 0.56% for the German Dax to 10,455.10, while the FTSE Mibtel was adding 0.48% to 17,093.55.
Significantly, in parallel, the yield on the benchmark 10-year Italian government bond was 10 basis points lower at 1.888%.
Meanwhile, euro/dollar was edging up by 0.17% to 1.0795.
Commenting on the news out Brussels, Berenberg's Holger Schmieding said: "Very limited progress on substance but a better effort to send a signal of solidarity rather than of discord.
"[...] With luck, this may be just good enough to prevent a further and potentially dangerous widening of risk spreads in European bond markets. Encouragingly, Italy’s prime minister Giuseppe Conte put a positive spin on the result."
Investors were also digesting news of a shockingly poor reading on German business confidence.
The IFO institute's closely-followed sentiment gauge plunged from a reading of 85.9 points for March to 74.3 points in April (consensus: 80.0 points).
IFO said: "Companies have never been so pessimistic about the coming months. The coronavirus crisis is striking the German economy with full fury."