Even though German factory orders went up, investors were worried about rising geopolitical tensions between China and the United States and the future of the global economy.
At 4:00 a.m. ET (09:00 a.m. GMT), the DAX index in Germany was down 0.6%, the CAC 40 in France was down 1%, and the FTSE 100 in the U.K. was down 0.6%.
In December, German industrial orders went up by 3.2% from the previous month. This was a big change from November, when orders dropped by 4.4%.
Related: European stocks decline as fears of a rate hike impede a rally.
This is the latest sign that Europe’s biggest economy won’t have a big drop over the winter.
But this good news comes after strong U.S. job numbers on Friday gave the Federal Reserve more room to keep raising interest rates to fight inflation.
Last Thursday, the European Central Bank also raised interest rates, and its leaders were quick to point out that more needs to be done to bring down inflation.
People are worried that growth on both sides of the Atlantic could stop this year, which would hurt corporate profits in the next few quarters.
The retail sales numbers for December in the Eurozone will be released later in the day. They are expected to show a drop of 2.5% for the month and a drop of 2.7% for the year.
The news that the U.S. shot down what was thought to be a Chinese spy balloon over the weekend also made people feel bad. Beijing said the balloon was used for meteorological research and had drifted into U.S. airspace by accident.
In business news, the boards of Renault (EPA:RENA) and Nissan (TYO:7201) have given the two carmakers the green light to restructure their 24-year-old alliance.
Under the new partnership, which was announced last month, Renault’s share of Nissan will drop from 43% to 15%, while Nissan has agreed to invest up to 15% in Renault’s new electric vehicle division, Ampere.
On Monday, Renault’s stock went up 0.1%, which was better than the overall trend, which was down.
Oil prices went up a little bit on Monday, making up for the big drops they took last week. This was helped by comments from the International Energy Agency about how Chinese demand could rise this year.
Over the weekend, the head of the IEA, Fatih Birol, said that early signs pointed to a stronger-than-expected recovery in China’s economy. This is likely to lead to a healthy increase in crude demand from the world’s largest importer.
Last week, oil prices fell to levels not seen in more than three weeks. This was because investors were worried that slower growth in major economies like the U.S. and Europe could limit fuel use in 2023.
Related: European stocks fall because of weakening commodity prices and mixed earnings.
By 4:00 p.m. ET, U.S. crude futures had gone up 0.6% to $73.83 per barrel, while the Brent contract went up 0.8% to $80.58 per barrel. Both contracts went down by 3% on Friday after good news about jobs in the U.S. This meant that both contracts lost about 8% over the course of the week.
Gold futures also went up 0.8% to $1,891.50/oz, while EUR/USD went down 0.1% to 1.0785.