LONDON: European stocks were mostly lower on Monday as Turkish shares plunged on the political and economic uncertainty following the country's elections, offsetting support for the alcoholic drinks and banking sectors.
Markets were also tracking the latest developments surrounding Greece's standoff with the European Union in debt talks, as well as comments out of the Group of Seven summit in Germany.
Frankfurt's DAX 30 index sank 1.07 percent to stand at 11,076.92 points in late afternoon deals and the CAC 40 in Paris fell 1.06 percent to 4,868.32.
London's benchmark FTSE 100 rose a slight 0.02 percent to 6,806 points compared with Friday's close.
The euro rose to $1.1203 from $1.1115 late on Friday in New York. Profit taking set in after the dollar had rallied ahead of the weekend following robust US jobs data that increased the prospect of an interest rate rise from the Federal Reserve later this year.
Elsewhere, the Turkish lira plunged to a record low point against the dollar Monday, breaking through the 2.8 lira level against the dollar for the first time.
Turkey's central bank acted swiftly to give some support to the pressured Turkish lira, saying it was pruning its short term foreign exchange deposit rates effective Tuesday.
Turkey's main stocks index tumbled by over 6.0 percent at one point, and by the afternoon the BIST 100 index in Istanbul was down 5.84 percent.
Turkey's Islamic-rooted ruling AKP party on Monday weighed its future strategy after losing its absolute parliament majority for the first time since winning power 13 years ago, in a stunning election setback for President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Greece meanwhile continued to be a central focus for markets. Athens desperately needs to secure the release of 7.2 billion euros ($8 billion) in aid funds from its IMF and EU creditors in order to meet debt servicing payments totalling 1.6 billion euros by the end of June.
"There's not much time left. We have to work very hard on this," said German Chancellor Angela Merkel at the close of the G7 leaders summit.
After a weekend spat between Athens and the EU over planned reforms, Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis told reporters on a visit Monday to Berlin: "It is time to stop pointing fingers at one another and it is time that we do our job... to come to an agreement."
Wall Street stocks opened slightly lower Monday on lingering worries about a potential Greek default as investors also anticipated Apple's launch of a ramped-up music service.
Five minutes into trade, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 0.05 percent at 17,840.82 points.
The broad-based S&P 500 slipped 0.04 percent to 2,092.01, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index lost 0.02 percent to 5,067.55.
"While Greece will inevitably continue to be the main story in the markets this week, there are plenty of other things that traders should not take their eye off including US retail sales on Thursday, large amounts of key data releases from China and Japan, and bond market volatility that could again ripple through the markets," said Craig Erlam, senior analyst at Oanda trading group.
On the corporate front, shares in alcoholic drinks giant Diageo jumped 6.70 percent to 1,878.50 pence in London afternoon trade on reports of a potential Brazilian takeover bid for the maker of Guinness stout and Foster's lager.
Brazilian newsweekly Veja reported that the nation's richest man, billionaire Jorge Paulo Lemann, and his partners in private equity firm 3G Capital were considering a bid for Diageo.
A Diageo spokesman declined to comment on the matter.
The banking sector was also in focus, with shares in Deutsche Bank surging 4.47 percent to 28.85 euros in Frankfurt, the day after its co-chief executives announced they were resigning as the banking group faces a wave of scandals and missed profit targets.
Germany's largest lender is mired in around 6,000 different litigation cases and was last month fined a record $2.5 billion (2.2 billion euros) for its involvement in the Libor interest rate-rigging scandal.
Comments
Comments are closed for this article.