European stocks went down on Friday as investors tried to figure out what would happen with monetary policy tightening in a slowing economy. Lower commodity prices and mixed earnings reports were to blame.
By 7:19 a.m. GMT, the pan-European STOXX 600 index had dropped 0.9%. Miners led the decline because commodity prices were falling because people were worried that China would put more restrictions on COVID-19. [O/R] [MET/L]
After the European Central Bank raised interest rates as expected but said “substantial” progress had already been made in the fight against a historic rise in inflation, the benchmark index ended the day flat.
Europe’s tech stocks fell 2.1%, and a sell-off on Wall Street looked like it would keep going after Amazon.com Inc. gave a weak forecast (NASDAQ:AMZN). [.N]
Related: Investors are not happy with European stores this Christmas.
Volkswagen (ETR:VOWG p) fell 2.4% after Europe’s largest automaker said it expected deliveries to be about the same as last year and reported earnings of 4.28 billion euros ($4.3 billion) for the third quarter, which were below pre-pandemic levels.
Danone’s stock went up 1.3% after it raised its forecast for revenue growth in 2022. The French food group was able to raise prices to make up for rising costs, which helped the stock go up.
($1 = 1.0056 euros)