Europe midday: Stocks little changed, trade war headlines in focus

Stocks are trading slightly lower following news that a new set of US sanctions will kick-in in just over a fortnight.

According to the US Trade Representative's Office, a 25% levy on a further $16.0bn of Chinese imports will be collected starting from 23 August.

Yet data released overnight had shown the rate of growth in Chinese exports picking-up from a year-on-year clip of 11.2% in May to a 12.2% pace for June.

In the background, analysts at Jefferies were telling clients: "The bottom line is that to date trade tariffs have not noticeably impacted overall growth. However, there are no signs that the US and China are any closer in finding agreement on trade. The likelihood is that the dispute will run beyond the November US mid-term elections."

Against that backdrop, as of 1210 BST the benchmark Stoxx 600 was dipping 0.08% or 0.36 points to 390.13, alongside a fall of 0.11% or 14.24 points to 12,633.21, although the FTSE Mibtel was adding 0.42% or 91.58 points to 21,944.93.

To take note of too, in the background the USTR was already assessing the possibility of levying a 10% tariff on another $200bn-worth of Chinese goods exports towards mid-September, which might be increased to 25%.

Overall, economic data was on the weak side on Wednesday.

Spanish industrial production fell by 0.6% month-on-month in June, according to INE, following a rise of 0.8% in the month before, led by declines in the output of energy (-3.8%) and durable consumer goods (-1.4%).

Meanwhile, in France, the central bank's industrial business sentiment index was unchanged in July from the month before, at a reading of 101.0.

In parallel, Banque de France projected that the country's GDP would grow at a quarter-on-quarter clip of 0.4% over the three months ending in September.

Shares of Casino Guichard-Perrachon were sliding sharply lower after analysts at Sanford C.Bernstein slashed their target price on the French retailer from €35.0 to €26.0.

The broker cited the greater-than-expected impact of related-party transactions on the company's valuation, saying that it left it "concerned about leverage triggers at other levels of the Casino holding structure."

ABN Amro stock on the other hand was higher even after it posted a 28% decline in second quarter profits to €688.0m.

Yet critically, the Dutch lender left the door open to a possible extra dividend payout after it reached the upper end of its targeted range for its capital buffers.