Europe open: Shares lower on Covid spike fears

The pan-European Stoxx 600 benchmark index was down 0.43% in early trade, after falls on Monday snapped a 10-day streak of gains.

Shares in Asia-Pacific were mostly lower overnight, with Chinese internet stocks in Hong Kong falling again as regulatory fears resurfaced. Tencent, Alibaba and JD.com were all seen trading lower, shortly after China’s market regulator issued draft rules designed to prevent unfair competition on the internet.

In the UK, official data revealed the number of employees on British company payrolls rose month-on-month by 182,000 in July. However, it remains 201,000 below pre-Covid levels.

The Office for National Statistics said the headline unemployment rate for the second quarter came in at 4.7%, slightly lower than economists had anticipated.

Vacancies rose by 290,000 from the previous quarter to 953,000. This was a 168,000 increase compared to pre-pandemic levels between January and March 2020.

Average weekly pay growth rose to 8.8% in June from 7.4% in May, hitting the highest level since the series began in 2001 and coming in above the Bank of England’s forecast of 8.5%.

Euro area inflation rate figures for July are expected later in the morning.

In equity news, Dutch tech firm Prosus, which has a stake in Chinese tech giant Tencent, fell 4.2%.

BHP Group shares jumped after the mining giant posted its best annual profit in nearly a decade and said it would sell its petroleum assets to Woodside Petroleum.