Picture: Dado Ruvic Picture: Dado Ruvic
London - Weak oil prices and a fall in the shares of Burberry knocked back European stock markets on Thursday.
The pan-European FTSEurofirst 300 index, which had risen 2.6 percent to a one-month high in the previous session, slipped back 0.2 percent.
The FTSEurofirst remains down by around 6 percent since the start of 2016, as concerns about a China-led economic slowdown have hit world stock markets and commodity prices, given China's role as a major consumer of oil and metals.
Oil prices fell on Thursday as OPEC warned of slowing demand and Russia hinted that there might only be a loose agreement with little commitments at the upcoming exporter meeting to rein in ballooning oversupply.
That in turn pushed down the shares of energy companies such as BP and Total.
“The lower oil price is not helping markets today. We've had a good move up of late, but there's just a bit more caution creeping in now,” said Hantec Markets' analyst Richard Perry.
Burberry slumped 7 percent after the British luxury goods group reported a fall in second-half sales.
“Near term, Burberry has high exposure to weakest areas of luxury demand: 38 percent of global sales to Chinese customers versus 30 percent industry average, 27 percent sales exposure to US,” Liberum analysts wrote in a note, keeping a “sell” rating on Burberry.
Unilever's shares also dipped after the consumer goods company posted a drop in turnover, although shares in Nestle rose more than 1 percent after the Swiss food company posted first-quarter numbers ahead of forecasts.
BLOOMBERG