Europe close: Stocks end moderately lower, Covid-19 outbreaks in focus

Stocks on the Continent finished lower on Monday but off their worst levels of the session as investors monitored news of higher Covid-19 case counts in the US, Germany, India and also China.

Nonetheless, those concerns were somewhat offset by the low likelihood at present that strict lockdowns would be reimposed.

"The losses aren't huge so traders are not that worried, but they are cautious that some of the good work that has been done in relation to suppressing the virus could be undone.," said David Madden at CMC Markets UK.

By the end of trading, the benchmark Stoxx 600 was down by 0.76% at 362.70, alongside a 0.55% drop for the German Dax to 12,262.97 while the FTSE Mibtel was down 0.71% to 19,478.73.

Indeed, according to the Sunday Telegraph, Downing Street, for one, was set to announce a further easing of lockdown measures in the UK the following day.

Also boosting sentiment, German finance minister, Olaf Scholz, predicted on Monday morning that the the legal standoff between the European Central Bank and the country's Constitutional Court would be resolved without drama - with Berlin likely to have the last word.

Ironically, the news out of Germany helped send the euro 0.72% higher to 1.1258 against the US dollar.

Against that backdrop, Retail and Autos&Parts were the best performing groups on the Stoxx 600, with their respective sector indices putting on 0.47% and 0.67%, respectively.

Early gains for healthcare issues on the other hand gave way to selling with the group ending the day down by 0.95%.

Further weighing on sentiment, shares of German payments firm Wirecard continued to slowly implode on the back of its accounting scandal and after management pulled the company's full-year results for fiscal 2019 and the first quarter of 2020.

Lufthansa was another top faller as its largest shareholder continued to hold out against the terms of a government rescue deal.

Elsewhere on the economic front, CBS reported that its Dutch consumer confidence index extended its recent bounce in June, rising by four points to -27.0, versus an all-time low of -41.0 reached in March 2013.

Similarly, Eurostat reported a further improvement in Eurozone-wide consumer sentiment, with its own index jumping from a reading of -18.8 for May to -14.7 in June.