(Reuters) – European shares slipped on Thursday, driven by gloomy sentiment on renewed worries around China’s property sector and mixed quarterly results.
The pan-European STOXX 600 index edged down 0.4% by 0710 GMT, retreating from its highest level in six weeks. Asian stocks were knocked lower by news about the collapse of a $2.6 billion asset sale at heavily indebted developer China Evergrande Group.
The losses were led by miners, automakers and industrial stocks, in tandem with growing nervousness around a slate of corporate earnings set for Thursday and the weeks to follow.
Swiss engineering and tech group ABB fell 3.4% on lowering its full-year sales forecast after warning of shortages of components.
AB Volvo was down 2.1% after its profit beat expectations but warned that persisting chip shortages hampered the truck maker’s production.
Barclays slipped 0.6% even as the British bank posted a bumper third-quarter performance.
Unilever rose 1.2% as the consumer goods giant beat third-quarter sales growth forecasts as it hiked prices to try to offset surging energy and other costs.
(Reporting by Anisha Sircar in Bengaluru; editing by Uttaresh.V)
