Europe midday: Stocks weaker ahead of a raft of potential risk events

Stocks have started the week on a down note ahead of an extraordinarily busy calendar in global capital markets for over the next few days, including a second round of trade talks between the US and China, quarterly earnings updates from a slew of American technology giants and a potentially key week on the Brexit front.

"Such a busy week will be a key test of the resilience of the risk appetite seen over the past month. Has this been one of the shortest bear markets in history, or merely a pause before a new one gets underway?," said IG's Chris Beauchamp.

As of 1156 GMT, the benchmark Stoxx 600 was down by 0.49% or 1.71 points at 356.13, alongside a dip of 0.27% or 30.21 points to 11,251.58 for the German Dax and a drop of 0.44% or 86.05 points to 19,723.06 on the FTSE Mibtel.

Basic Resources shares were outperforming, with the Stoxx 600 sector gauge adding 0.25% to 432.68 after a dam belonging to Brazilian miner Vale broke at the weekend, pushing iron ore futures 6% higher.

Strategists at Bank of America-Merrill Lynch were more cautious. In a research note entitled "take cover", they told clients that a US-China deal and a 'dovish' Fed were already "consensus" or priced into stocks, with only improved data out of China left to drive further upside, but that they said was a story for the second quarter.

In the meantime, "markets may correct", BofA-ML said.

Against that backdrop, and underscoring one of the points made by Merrill, China's National Bureau of Statistics reported a 1.9% decline in industrial profits in the Asian giant for the month of December.

But investor angst was being partially offset by news at the weekend of a temporary resolution of the partial US government shutdown.

Meanwhile, front month Brent crude oil futures were down by 1.6% to $60.67 a barrel on the ICE, in the wake of weekly data published last Friday that revealed an unexpected rise - the first increase of 2019 - in the number of onshore oil rigs operating in the States.

In other economic news, the European Central Bank reported that the annual rate of growth in euro area money supply increased from 3.7% for November to 4.1% in December (consensus: 3.8%).

Nevertheless, the dip in the annual rate of growth of M1, or so-called 'narrow' money supply, meant the "overall message" from Monday's report was that economic growth in the Eurozone was slowing, said Pantheon Macroeconomics's Claus Vistesen.

For later in the day, ECB chief, Mario Draghi, was set to speak before the European parliament, at 1400 GMT.

On the corporate front, according to Bloomberg, Deutsche Bank clinched a commitment for new investment from Qatar, likely via the country's sovereign wealth fund.

Also in Germany, shares of Siemens were hugging the flat-line and off their intra-day lows despite reports that Brussels was set to shoot down its merger with Alstom after judging that the concessions made by the two companies fell short of what was needed.