Europe close: Stocks dragged lower by geopolitical tensions

Geopolitical jitters weighed on European markets on Wednesday, with traders treading cautiously given the mounting tensions around Syria and the possibility of a military strike by the US over coming days, amid multiple other concerns.

Also possibly weighing on risk appetite was news out on Monday that some EU states were pushing for further sanctions on Iran, alongside headlines that the White House has affirmed its authority to fire special counsel Robert Mueller if necessary.

It was against that backdrop that traders were also keeping an eye out for any fresh movements out of Beijing or Washington on the global trade front even as news broke that US House of Representatives's majority speaker Paul Ryan would not run for re-election in the 2018 midterms.

By the closing bell, the benchmark Stoxx 600 was dipping 0.59% or 2.24 points lower at 376.18, alongside a drop of 0.83% or 103.35 points to 12,293.97 for the German Dax and a decline of 0.56% or 29.62 points to 5,277.94 on the Cac-40.

In parallel, euro/dollar was little changed, edging just 0.03% higher to 1.2357.

Further afield on the other hand, the Russian rouble was trading little changed at 0.016 US dollars, having bounced back from another round of sharp selling earlier, while the yield on the benchmark 10-year Russian government bond was six basis points lower at 7.53%, having earlier climbed as high as 7.53%.

Commenting on the market action, David Madden at CMC Markets UK said: "Traders are tetchy over tensions surrounding the US, Russia and Syria, with the possibility of the US launching missiles in Syria causing concern. Equity markets are off the lows of the session, but sentiment is from bullish."

Economic data out in the euro area on Wednesday was uninspiring, with ISTAT reporting that retail sales in the Mediterranean country fell by 0.5% month-on-month (consensus: 0.3%).

Further north, in France, the country's central bank reported that its industrial confidence gauge slipped from a reading of 105.0 for February to 103.0 for March (consensus: 105.0).