European shares fall as cooling US inflation fails to ease jitters

11 Aug, 2023

European shares opened lower on Friday after a Wall Street rally fuelled by tame inflation data fizzled out, though better-than-expected earnings put the benchmark STOXX 600 on course for mild weekly gains.

The pan-European STOXX 600 fell 0.5% by 0704 GMT, with miners and oil & gas stocks leading losses as commodity prices fell against a firm dollar.

Wall Street’s main indexes closed nearly flat on Thursday, having rallied as much as 1% during the session after data showed US consumer prices increased moderately in July, a trend that could persuade the Federal Reserve to hold interest rates next month.

However, US and European bond yields continued to rise, putting pressure on equities.

Luxury stocks, Fed rate pause bets boost European shares

UK’s FTSE 100 fell 0.6% as the pound rose after official data showed Britain’s economy eked out some unexpected growth in the second quarter.

Among individual stocks, Switzerland’s biggest bank UBS rose 4.2% after it said it no longer needed the public liquidity backstop agreed as part of its state-sponsored takeover of Credit Suisse.

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