European stocks ended lower on Wednesday, with the Stoxx Stoxx 600 recording its worst trading day since mid-April.
benchmark Stoke 600 It temporarily closed down more than 1%, with all industries and major exchanges showing negative values. Mining stocks led the decline, falling 2.12%.
mining giant Anglo American Down 3.89% after hours BHP Group said it did not intend to make a firm takeover bid before the 5 p.m. negotiation deadline.
International Delivery Services, owner of Britain’s Royal Mail, rose 4.36% after accepting a 3.57 billion pound ($4.56 billion) takeover bid from Czech billionaire Daniel Kretinsky.
The Stoxx index also fell on Tuesday, closing down 0.6% as investors focused on the outlook for interest rates and focused on rising global bond yields.
Strong first-quarter and full-year earnings put the index on track for a monthly gain.
“Earnings season has generally been better than expected,” Marcus Morris-Eyton, Europe and global growth portfolio manager at AllianceBernstein, told CNBC’s “Squawk Box Europe” on Tuesday.
Maurice Ayton said: “51% of companies beat expectations, but two-thirds actually beat or met expectations, and when you dig deeper under the surface, what is particularly interesting is the margins of European companies in the quarter. Strong.
“This suggests that so far, companies are managing to maintain many of the price increases they have driven during the COVID-19 pandemic, so as inflationary pressures ease, companies are maintaining those pricing gains that benefit the bottom line,” he added.
However, as earnings streams dry up, attention has returned to the plans of the world’s major central banks as they express caution about the outlook for inflation.
Minneapolis Fed President Neel Kashkari told CNBC on Tuesday that it will take “a few more months of positive inflation data” to give him confidence that it’s time to cut interest rates.
Meanwhile, ECB Governing Council member Klaas Nott said in a speech in London that less restrictive monetary policy would be appropriate “soon” but that easing would have to be “slow” and “gradual” carried out.
The euro zone and the United States are due to release inflation data on Friday.
Asia-Pacific stocks were mostly lower on Wednesday, with U.S. stocks also retreating.
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