European shares dip on rate, trade worries
By Julien Ponthus
LONDON (Reuters) - European shares eased on Monday as last week's rebound ran out of steam on investor nervousness over fast-rising U.S. interest rates and Washington's trade dispute with Beijing.
The pan-European STOXX 600 <.STOXX> benchmark index fell 0.1 percent with most country indexes also hovering around neutral.
Tuesday's U.S. mid-term elections also kept traders cautious, as did uncertainty over whether renewed hopes of a breakthrough in Brexit negotiations were misplaced.
Results from the European banking stress tests had little impact, with the sector <.SX7P> ending down 0.4 percent.
"The results provide no surprises and we expect little market reaction," Jefferies analysts wrote.
Britain's Barclays
The Italian banking index <.FTIT8300> lost 1.6 percent, however, after Goldman Sachs downgraded BPER
Lloyd's of London underwriter Hiscox
Telenet (NYSE: TNET) lost 5.4 percent after a rating downgrade from Bank of America Merrill Lynch.
Top faller on the STOXX 600 was Grenke
The company later delayed the placement of a five-year bond.
Among positive trading updates was Dutch oil and gas storage firm Vopak (OTC: VOPA), up 5 percent, and Siemens Healthineers
French payments group Ingenico
Britain's Micro Focus (NYSE: MCRO) was up 2 percent after it said it expected full-year revenue to come in toward the higher end of a weak outlook and announced the departure of its finance director for ITV after less than 12 months.
(Reporting by Julien Ponthus, Editing by John Stonestreet and Ed Osmond)