StockBeat: Trump Sends Europe's Stocks Skidding Again

By Geoff Smith

Investing.com – Europe’s stock markets were in retreat again on Wednesday morning after President Donald Trump kept the world guessing about the future direction of U.S. trade policy with a speech that, on balance, did more to talk up the lingering risk of no trade deal with China.

By 4:30 AM ET (0930 GMT), the benchmark was down 0.7% at 404.18, while the U.K. was down 0.6% and Germany’s down 0.9%.

On another heavy day for earnings, Italian luxury group Salvatore Ferragamo (LON:) stood out with a gain of 3.8% after posting figures that showed it had withstood a 45% drop in sales in Hong Kong in the quarter, thanks in large part to greater spending in mainland China.

Together with similar (if less dramatic) drops reported by Kering (PA:) and LVMH (PA:), Ferragamo’s figures suggest that the biggest takeaway from the Hong Kong violence for Europe’s Asia-heavy luxury groups will be that Chinese shoppers can now easily replace trips to a shopping hub that was once unique in the region.

Elsewhere, Spanish banks continued to underperform amid fears for the future course of Spain’s economic policy under a prospective left-wing coalition. The center-left PSOE and far-left Unidos Podemos sealed a preliminary agreement on forming a new government on Tuesday, although they will still need votes from other parties to secure a stable majority in parliament.

Santander (MC:) was down 3.2%, while BBVA (MC:) was down 2.4% and Bankia (MC:) – which depends more on the home market than either of its two bigger rivals – was down 4.4%. The was down 1.4% and is now down 2.4% over the last week.

In the U.K., meanwhile, independent oil company Tullow Oil (LON:) fell over 20% after announcing that the l it had discovered in Guyana was a heavy, sour blend that would be hard to commercialize. Utility SSE (LON:) rose 1.7% after first-half results that benefited from the reinstatement of payments by the U.K. capacity market which had previously been the subject of a challenge from the European Commission.

Disclaimer: Fusion Media would like to remind you that the data contained in this website is not necessarily real-time nor accurate. All CFDs (stocks, indexes, futures) and Forex prices are not provided by exchanges but rather by market makers, and so prices may not be accurate and may differ from the actual market price, meaning prices are indicative and not appropriate for trading purposes. Therefore Fusion Media doesn`t bear any responsibility for any trading losses you might incur as a result of using this data.

Fusion Media or anyone involved with Fusion Media will not accept any liability for loss or damage as a result of reliance on the information including data, quotes, charts and buy/sell signals contained within this website. Please be fully informed regarding the risks and costs associated with trading the financial markets, it is one of the riskiest investment forms possible.