Europe mdiday: Stocks slip despite moves to reopen borders

Stocks are moving lower across the Continent even as governments continue to make strides in reopening their economies.

According to Germany's Interior Minister, Horst Seehofer, the country is aiming to reopen its land borders by 15 June, with travel to and from Luxembourg set to re-start from Saturday and Denmark set to follow soon.

Reopenings had also already been agreed with Austria, France, and Switzerland.

Against that backdrop, as of 1200 GMT, the German Dax was down by 1.27% to 10,681.63, alongside a 1.10% drop on the Stoxx 600 to 336.82 while the FTSE Mibtel was off by 1.21% to 17,346.32.

On the pandemic front, the number of new infections in Spain continued to retreat on Wednesday, although overnight Italy reported an increase in the number of daily new infections from 744 to 1,402.

In Germany however, the rate of new infections fell back again.

Travel & Leisure issues were pacing losses on the Stoxx 600, with a gauge for the sector down by 3.15% after travel operator TUI AG announced that it would cut 15% of its workforce or 8,000 people.

Banks were also lower, with the sector index falling 1.87% after ABN Amro and Commerzbank unveiled hefty first quarter provisions in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic.

ABN Amro booked €1.1bn euros of provisions and warned that they might reach a total of €2.5bn in 2020.

The provisions, together with its exposure to two clients, resulted in a net loss of €395m, its first negative quarter since 2013.

Commerzbank meanwhile announced €326m of credit provisions and said the full-year tally might hit €1.4bn, possibly keeping it in the red for all of 2020.

The economic data continued to be dire, albeit not quite as bad as forecast.

Eurostat reported a 11.3% month-on-month drop in industrial production for March (Barclays Research: -14.3%).