EU equities slump

On Monday, escalating US-Chinese trade tensions impacted European equities due to the fact that market participants fled risk at the beginning of a highly uncertain week, with the UK’s parliamentary vote on Brexit looming too as well as chemicals shares affected by a BASF revenue warning.

The STOXX 600 index decreased by 0.9% hitting a new two-year minimum. The FTSE 100 slumped by about 0.4% in Great Britain, while the DAX index decreased by 0.8% in Germany.

Crude stocks SXEP went down by 1.1%, erasing their 2018 profits. Crude had been the last sector holding onto profits in the European bloc. All the STOXX 600 sector indices are currently staying in the red (with dives of 26% for cars and banks) or intact on the year.

Equities in BASF went down by 4.7% after the German chemicals company slashed its estimate for this year’s gains on Friday.

BASF counterpart Symrise declined by 3.1%, Sika sank by 5.1%, while Imerys went down by 5%, assisting to drag the pan-European chemicals index SX4P down 2.5% and also making it the worst-performer.

Construction and materials stocks, which are very sensitive to economic surge, declined by 1.5%, while autos stocks SXAP went down by 1.3% because trade tensions generated negative consequences.

Chipmakers Siltronic, STMicro, and AMS went down by 2.9%-5.1% because traders had the tech sector ditched.

French hotel, transport, and retail stocks dived reacting to a fourth weekend of "yellow vest" protests, affecting the national economy.

On the STOXX, LVMH and Kering found themselves among the biggest drags. However, France's CAC 40 didn’t manage to underperform European rivals, losing just 0.6%.

Stocks in British energy utilities Centrica as well as SSE went down by about 3% because traders remained quite passive ahead of a decisive vote on Brexit on Tuesday.

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