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Europe closes slightly lower as corporate earnings weigh; Burberry tumbles 9.3%
Europe ended under slight pressure on Wednesday as positive trade on Wall Street failed to lift sentiment, as corporate news dominated discussion. The pan-European Stoxx 600 (^STOXX) provisionally slipped 0.1 percent by the close, off its session lows. Britain's FTSE 100 (FTSE International: .FTSE) fell 0.39 percent, while France's CAC 40 (Euronext Paris: .FCHI) dipped 0.36 percent and Germany's DAX (^GDAXI) dropped 0.47 percent. Peripheral markets closed in different directions. Sectors closed mostly lower. Among them, media was one of the worst-performing industries, slipping 0.6 percent — dragged down by Informa (London Stock Exchange: INF-GB) and Pearson. Shares of Pearson (London Stock Exchange: PSON-GB) sank 4.65 percent after the publisher reported a 2 percent fall in revenue in the first nine months of its fiscal year. Telecoms sank 0.8 percent as a sector, with most stocks closing in the red. Technology meantime finished on a positive note, boosted by ASML (Euronext Amsterdam: ASML-NL), which rose 5 percent, after reporting better-than-expected results. On Wall Street, U.S. stocks posted solid gains around Europe's close , with the Dow Jones industrial average rising some 150 points, on better-than-expected earnings. Stock movers and shakers Looking across the European benchmark, Ubm (Vienna Stock Exchange: UBS-AT) was one of the top gainers, jumping some 12 percent. This followed news that the British firm Informa has decided to buy the events organizer for £4 billion ($5.2 billion), Reuters reported. Informa (London Stock Exchange: INF-GB) meantime dropped 5.7 percent. U.K. fashion house Burberry (London Stock Exchange: BRBY-GB) sat at the bottom of the STOXX 600 at the end of trade, tumbling 9.3 percent, after reporting lower sales in its third quarter. News that Interserve is being monitored by the U.K. government on concerns over its financial health weighed on the construction sector, following the collapse of Carillion. Interserve (London Stock Exchange: IRV-GB) ended in the red, but off its highs. At the top of Europe's benchmark, Rolls Royce (London Stock Exchange: RR.-GB) popped 5.4 percent after the manufacturer announced that it would evaluate the strategic options of its commercial marine businesses, a division that has suffered due to weak demand in the offshore oil and gas markets. Europe's top performer was Steinhoff (XETRA:SNH-DE), which rose 16.13 percent by the close, having posted sharp gains at the end of the session. In other news, Swiss food group Nestle (: @NESNLFDC17Z-GB) announced Tuesday that it had agreed to sell its U.S. business to Ferrero for $2.8 billion.
Inflation data On the data front, consumer inflation in the euro zone slowed down in December to 1.4 percent year-on-year from 1.5 percent in the previous month. Meanwhile, Jens Weidmann, the German representative to the European Central Bank said in an interview published Wednesday that it would be "appropriate" to stop bond purchases, the newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung reported. Looking overseas, Asian markets closed lower after Wall Street reversed from record highs on Tuesday. The Dow hit the 26,000 benchmark briefly in its previous session, however, it also recorded its biggest one-day reversal in nearly a year, on government shutdown concerns. Congress needs to pass a spending bill by the end of Friday to avoid a government shutdown.
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