(Reuters) – European shares opened lower on Friday after a Wall Street rally fuelled by tame inflation data fizzled out, though better-than-expected earnings put the benchmark STOXX 600 on course for mild weekly gains.
The pan-European STOXX 600 fell 0.5% by 0704 GMT, with miners and oil & gas stocks leading losses as commodity prices fell against a firm dollar. [O/R] [MET/L]
Wall Street’s main indexes closed nearly flat on Thursday, having rallied as much as 1% during the session after data showed U.S. consumer prices increased moderately in July, a trend that could persuade the Federal Reserve to hold interest rates next month.
However, U.S. and European bond yields continued to rise, putting pressure on equities. [US/] [GVD/EUR]
UK’s FTSE 100 fell 0.6% as the pound rose after official data showed Britain’s economy eked out some unexpected growth in the second quarter.
Among individual stocks, Switzerland’s biggest bank UBS rose 4.2% after it said it no longer needed the public liquidity backstop agreed as part of its state-sponsored takeover of Credit Suisse.
(Reporting by Shashwat Chauhan and Sruthi Shankar in Bengaluru; Editing by Subhranshu Sahu)
