European Shares Decline As Tech Rout Deepens

European stocks fell on Monday, with concerns over policy tightening by the Federal Reserve and rising tensions about Russia’s military buildup on the Ukraine border weighing on sentiment.

Meanwhile, Eurozone private sector growth eased in January as the Omicron variant hit the services activity, flash survey results from IHS Markit showed.

The flash composite output index slid to an 11-month low of 52.4 in January, from 53.3 in December. The score was forecast to fall to 52.6. British business activity also cooled unexpectedly this month to an 11-month low.

The pan European Stoxx 600 fell 1.3 percent to 468.29 after plummeting 1.8 percent on Friday. The German DAX declined 1.1 percent, France’s CAC 40 index gave up 1.3 percent and the U.K.’s FTSE 100 was down 0.7 percent.

Technology stocks were broadly lower after Wall Street’s tech rout on Friday saw the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite log their biggest weekly percentage drops since the onset of the pandemic. Infineon Technologies fell 2.6 percent and ASM International lost 3.1 percent.

Shell was down 0.7 percent in London after confirming its name has changed from Royal Dutch Shell plc to Shell plc.

Unilever jumped more than 6 percent after reports that activist investor Nelson Peltz has built a stake in the consumer goods company.

Vodafone soared 6 percent on reports that it was in talks with Iliad to combine their operations in Italy.

Renault rallied 2.5 percent. The French carmaker, Japan’s Nissan Motor Co and Mitsubishi Motors Corp are soon going to work together to develop electric vehicles. The trio is expected to invest more than 20 billion euros over the next five years.

Commerzbank AG was down about 1 percent. The lender said that its fourth-quarter earnings would be impacted by provisions made at its Polish mBank, but it still expects expects a positive net result for the financial year 2021.

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