Europe open: Stocks fall as Sino-US trade deal remains elusive

European stocks were lower on Tuesday morning as investors continued to focus on trade negotiations ahead of a Sunday deadline for new US tariffs on Chinese goods.

At 0853 GMT, the Stoxx 600 was down by 0.5% at 404.18, as Germany's Dax dropped by 0.7% to 13,017.14 and the French CAC 40 fell by 0.35 to 5,817.12. Meanwhile, London's FTSE 100 was 0.6% lower at 7,192.18.

US Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue on Monday told Bloomberg that he did not expect fresh duties on Chinese exports to come into effect this weekend, while White House adviser Jared Kushner said talks were "heading in a good direction" at the Wall Street Journal’s CEO Council meeting.

Spreadex analyst Connor Campbell said it was hard to pinpoint an exact reason for markets being in the red other than the lack of a concrete announcement of a phase one agreement between Beijing and Washington.

"With the latter set to impose tariffs on another $156bn in goods from the later this Sunday, the lack of a deal is only going to become more of an issue as the week goes on. Tuesday’s losses may well be a sign of that already," added Campbell.

Among individual stocks, Colruyt racked up solid gains after its interim results showed improvements to earnings and margins, though the Belgian retailer said it expected the market to remain competitive into the new calendar year.

French drugmaker Sanofi was also in the green after it announced a strategy to halt its research into diabetes and cardiovascular diseases in favour of increasing its focus on treatments such as its eczema medicine Dupixent.

Atlantia climbed after a report from newspaper Milano Finanza suggested that the Italian infrastructure company could be in line for investment from state lender Cassa Depositi e Prestiti.

French retail group Casino Group rose as it announced new plans to pay off debts of around €3.3bn.

Valeo sank as the car parts supplier's chief executive warned that a slump in demand from China was likely to translate into further redundancies in Europe.