A balcony above a trading floor inside the Euronext NV stock exchange in Paris, France, on Monday, March 13, 2023.
LONDON — European stocks were slightly lower Wednesday, paring gains from the previous session on the back of Chinese stimulus measures.
The pan-European Stoxx 600 traded around 0.1% lower at around 9:00 a.m. London time, with major bourses in negative territory.
Europe's banking index was among those to lead losses, down around 0.4% as market participants closely monitored UniCredit's swoop for Commerzbank, Germany's second-largest lender.
Milan-based UniCredit announced on Monday that it had increased its stake in Commerzbank to around 21% and submitted a request to boost that holding to up to 29.9%. It follows UniCredit's move to take a 9% stake in Commerzbank earlier this month.
Shares of Commerzbank, which announced Wednesday that Bettina Orlopp will take over as chief executive officer in the near future, dipped 0.3% during morning deals.
European stocks closed 0.6% higher on Tuesday, buoyed by China's central bank monetary stimulus measures with mining, technology and household goods the best-performing sectors. The People's Bank of China said the central bank would cut the reserve requirement ratio for banks by 50 basis points, although it did not provide a specific timeline.
Money Report
Looking at individual stock moves, Finnish engineering company Valmet surged to the top of the European benchmark. It comes after the firm received an order valued at roughly 1 billion euros ($1.1 billion) from a pulp mill in Brazil. Shares of Valmet rose more than 9% on the news.
Meanwhile, German software developer SAP tumbled to the bottom of the Stoxx 600 after Bloomberg reported on Tuesday that the company, among others, is under investigation in the U.S. over price-fixing allegations. Shares of SAP fell 3.6% on Wednesday.
Elsewhere, Sweden's Riksbank on Wednesday cut interest rates by 25 basis points to 3.25% and suggested the policy rate could be reduced further at the two remaining monetary policy meetings this year.
Sweden's central bank said a rate cut of 50 basis points is possible at one of these meetings. One basis point equals 0.01%.
Asia-Pacific markets were largely range-bound overnight, although Hong Kong's Hang Seng index extended its rally and climbed 2.2% on the back of the announced stimulus, while mainland China's CSI 300 recorded its largest one-day gain in over four years.
U.S. stock futures were slightly lower Wednesday morning. The major three averages are on track for a positive month, though concerns that the U.S. economy could be slowing down remain after last week's interest rate cut from the Federal Reserve.
There are no major earnings or data releases in Europe Wednesday.
