Europe midday: Stocks slip as caution creeps in ahead of Doha meeting

At midday, the benchmark Stoxx Europe 600 index was down 0.5%, while Germany’s DAX and France’s CAC 40 were both off 0.6%.

At the same time, oil prices extended losses amid reports the Iranian oil minister will not attend this Sunday’s summit in Qatar. Instead, Iran’s OPEC governor will be present. West Texas Intermediate was down 1.7% to $40.78 a barrel while Brent crude was 1.6% lower at $43.15.

On Thursday, the International Energy Agency said the global oil glut was set to ease by the end of this year. It also said that any potential agreement to freeze output at the Doha meeting would have only a limited impact on supplies.

“Overall there’s a slight negative bias but this could be no more than a touch of position-squaring after this week’s rally and ahead of the weekend,” said David Morrison, senior market strategist at SpreadCo.

“Investors are well aware of Sunday’s meeting in Doha between OPEC and non-OPEC producers to discuss a freeze on crude output. Equity movements have a strong positive correlation to the oil price so we may see some profit-taking now given uncertainty ahead of the meeting.”

Stocks in Asia reacted in a pretty muted fashion to data showing China’s economy grew 6.7% on the year in the first quarter compared with 6.8% in the fourth quarter of last year.

Although this marked the slowest quarterly growth in seven years, it was in line with both economists’ expectations and the country’s own targets. The government’s growth range is 6.5% to 7%.

For 2015 as a whole, growth came in at 6.9%.

Meanwhile, figures from the National Bureau of Statistics showed industrial output in the world’s second-largest economy rose 6.8% in March from the year before and compared with 5.4% growth in January to February. Economists had been expecting a 5.9% increase.

Retail sales increased 10.5% in March from a year earlier compared with 10.2% growth in January to February, just a touch above economists’ expectations of 10.4%.

In corporate news, Rio Tinto slipped after announcing the extension of its Channar Mining joint venture with Sinosteel Corporation in Australia’s Pilbara region.

Supermarket operator Carrefour pushed higher as its first quarter sales came in marginally ahead of expectations.

Man Group rallied after its first quarter update revealed positive net inflows and a good performance at its AHL unit.

Earlier, data from Eurostat showed the Eurozone trade surplus shrank in February as imports rose more rapidly than exports.