(menafn – ecpulse)
European shares fell on Thursday midday trading on worries Spain may ask for an international bailout like Greece, Ireland and Portugal to jolt out of the current difficult situation.
Spanish Prime Minister, Mariano Rajoy met yesterday the health and education ministers, seeking further cuts worth around 10 billion euros, in attempts to reduce the deficit to 3% next year to avoid seeking bailout such as Greece, Ireland and Portugal.
After the end of Easter holiday yesterday, trades arte coming back to normal level today, where eyes will watch a French debt auction later in the day which aims to sell 7.8 billion euros of securities after the rise in Spanish bond yield last week had increasing speculations the debt crisis is not easing.
Concerns came back to investors despite data released today from Germany which came better than forecasts. Exports advanced 1.6% in February, defying analysts' forecasts of seeing 1.2% drop, yet below the prior 3.4% rise. On the other hand, imports surged 3.9% from a prior of 2.4%, to have widening trade surplus of 14.7 billion euros in February from a revised of 13.2 billion euros.
Generally, there are worries on global recovery after Fed's Chairman Ben Bernanke said at a conference in Stone Mountain, Georgia. the world's no.1 economy “is still far from having fully recovered” from the financial crisis, where Eyes will track announcements from U.S. officials this week to see how serious they are in terms of adding to stimulus.
As of 07:03 EST, STOXX EUROPE 600 slipped 1.28% to record 255.76 points. Financials led the decline with a drop of 2.13%, followed by Oil & Gas which recorded 1.59% slide.
The largest losses were recorded by SBM Offshore NV as its shares plummeted 7.68% to 14.30 SEK. On the flip side, the highest shares were for National Bank of Greece as it advanced 15.76% to 1.91 euros.
The French CAC index slipped 1.55% to 3268.28 levels, where STMicroelectric shares edged down 5.10% to 5.49 euros, whereas, on the other hand, the biggest winner was France Telecom which soared 0.09% to 10.64 euros.
Germany's DAX index plummeted 1.08% to 6702.39 points; Commerzbank contributed to the losses with after dropping 3.09% to 1.70 euros. Deutsche Lufthansa, on the flip side, recorded 10.23 euros after adding 0.49%.
Other major European indices also showed a drop, where Britain's FTSE index lost 0.99% to 5666.87 points.
