Europe close: Stocks little changed, investors gripped by doubts on US-China trade and Brexit
Stocks on the Continent finished on a mixed note after a top US official said that Washington might choose to remove only some of its tariffs on Chinese goods as part of any deal.
Larry Kudlow, the White House's national economic adviser, also reportedly indicated that a trade deal was not time dependent.
His remarks, together with the uncertainty around the UK Parliament's deliberations on Brexit, saw investors opt to sit on their hands.
"Once again the sound of dashed trade war hopes can be heard across markets, as Larry Kudlow declares that US-China talks could go on for months. This is no surprise, and the potential length of these talks, and indeed the never-ending Brexit situation, have become something of a running joke across markets lately," said IG's Chris Beauchamp.
By the close of trading, the benchmark Stoxx 600 had drifted lower by 0.12% to 376.84, alongside a drop of 0.53% on the FTSE Mibtel to 21,080.97, although the German Dax was up by 0.09% to 11,428.16.
From a sector standpoint, the Stoxx 600's sector gauge for Basic Resources was up by 0.17% to 463.71, but well off its earlier highs following Kudlow's remarks.
Nonetheless, overnight Reuters had reported that Beijing had made unprecedented proposals in talks with Washington on areas including forced technology transfers.
A rival sector index for lenders was down by 1.27% to 137.96.
Weighing on the latter, Deutsche Bank fell on the back of reports that it might raise as much as €10bn to finance its tie-up with Commerzbank, with Swedbank shares down again after it fired its chief executive officer in the wake of the recent money laundering allegations that had engulfed the lender.
Meanwhile, Sterling was off by 0.87% versus the pound at 1.1629 following a slate of so-called indicative votes the night before in the UK Parliament which, in the words of Jasper Lawler, head of research at LCG, had "indicated little".
Traders were also reacting to reports that the British government would push for a vote in Parliament on just the Prime Minister's withdrawal proposal on the following day, amid a degree of speculation that the end game might end up being fresh general elections.
The latest batch of economic data out of the Eurozone was mixed.
According to the European Central Bank, the rate of growth in euro area money supply picked up from a pace of 2.5% for January to 2.8% in February.
However, the European Commission's euro area economic sentiment covering the month of March fell to 105.0, versus 105.4 in the month before, amid a much sharper than expected deterioration in a gauge of industrial confidence.