European equities inch down due to sell-off

On Wednesday, technology companies led EU equities lower in early trade because everlasting worries as for a regulatory clampdown on big tech as well as a string of downbeat headlines overnight affected market sentiment towards the sector, which drove a long bull market.

The pan-regional STOXX 600 headed south 1.1%, with tech equities SX8P leading sectorial losers, diving 2.6%, after equities in Facebook extended their dip on ongoing privacy worries.

A further dive in bond revenues also influenced the heavyweight banking sector.

On Tuesday, equities in electric car producer Tesla declined after a serious crash as well as fire of a Tesla car launched a U.S. federal field probe. Twitter went down after short-seller Citron Research labeled the stock as extremely vulnerable to any privacy regulations. Besides this, chip maker Nvidia Corp informed that it had to have self-driving car tests suspended throughout the world, just a week after an Uber Technologies Inc autonomous car killed a female in Arizona.

Tech turned to be a major driver behind a soar to record maximums in global stock markets. Market participants worry that a jump in regulation could provoke a further sell-off.

Top losers among EU tech equities were represented by STMicro, Infineon and Ams. They demonstrated a tumble 2.8%-4.4%.

A recent flow of downbeat reports has turned to be a trigger for the sell-off in the American tech sector. As for the underlying cause, that’s excessively stretched valuation metrics, which has provoked a serious misalignment with fundamentals, generally for the big technology equities, as some financial experts pointed out.

Among financial intuitions big decliners included Credit Suisse and Commerzbank. They both headed south more than 1% right after German bond revenues inched down 0.5% for the first time since early January.

Among top performers, Shire rallied 4.3%.