Yahoo Finance European equities drop on slowing US growth
European stocks slumped Wednesday on disappointing US economic growth data, and before the outcome of the Federal Reserve's latest monetary policy meeting.
In mid-afternoon deals, London's benchmark FTSE 100 slid 0.60 percent to 6,988.16 points compared with Tuesday's closing level.
Frankfurt's DAX 30 index dropped 1.55 percent to 11,629.07 points and the CAC 40 in Paris shed 1.40 percent to stand at 5,100.81.
The euro, however, hit a three-week dollar peak at $1.1064 on hopes that Greece's new negotiating team will hammer out a bailout reform deal with creditors and avert a default.
The greenback also took a hit as an early US interest rate rise looks increasingly unlikely, dealers said.
Early jitters in Europe about continued US expansion proved justified when first quarter GDP growth figures of just 0.2 percent were published Wednesday, well below the one percent rate anticipated by analysts and sharply down from the 2.2 percent pace in the previous three months.
"What a disappointment to think the US economy barely grew at all in the first quarter with the Fed funds rate at the zero bound for more than six years now," said Briefing.com analyst Patrick O'Hare.
In response Wall Street stocks opened lower as well, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average down 0.34 percent to 18,049.11 points five minutes into trading.
The broad-based S&P 500 dropped 0.30 percent to 2,108.51 points, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index shed 0.35 percent to 5,037.69.
A new Greek expert team, tasked with negotiating with the country's creditors, met Tuesday to draw up a series of reforms aimed at finally reaching a deal.
The "political negotiation team", led by the Dutch-born economics professor and junior foreign minister Euclid Tsakalotos, met late in the evening "to devise reform proposals," the finance ministry said.
Greece needs to be realistic when negotiating debt relief, Eurogroup chief Jeroen Dijsselbloem cautioned earlier Tuesday, as Athens runs out of time and money to settle a deal.
On the London stock market, miners lit up the fallers board on the FTSE 100, as investors fretted over heavy falls for copper prices.
Antofagasta shares sank 2.74 percent to 780 pence, BHP Billiton shed 1.92 percent to 1,559 pence and Rio Tinto dropped 2.55 percent to 2,903.50 pence.
And British bank Barclays saw its share price slide 2.05 percent to 256.05 pence on the back of a grim results statement.
The scandal-hit lender warned that fines linked to its alleged role in foreign exchange market rigging could top £2.0 billion ($3.1 billion, 2.8 billion euros), after posting plunging first-quarter net profits.
The British lender added it has set aside another £800 million for "investigations and litigation primarily relating to foreign exchange", taking the group's total provision to £2.050 billion.
Asian stock markets meanwhile slipped Wednesday after more weak US economic data raised questions about the health of the world's top economy.
Sydney plunged 1.85 percent and Hong Kong dropped 0.15 percent, but Shanghai recovered from early losses to close flat. Tokyo was closed for a public holiday.
