Europe close: Stocks slide amid sharp losses in Basic Resources and Technology
Stocks across the Continent came under selling pressure on Friday, with Basic Resources and Technology under the greatest stress, on the heels of another move higher for government bond yields in response to better-than-expected jobs data in the States.
At 134,000 for September, growth in US non-farm payrolls fell short of analysts of forecasts, but upwards revisions to figures for the previous two months and a two tenths of a percentage point drop in unemployment to 3.7% - the least since 1969 - led investors around the world to dump bonds and stocks.
Italian shares meanwhile were again at the bottom of the pile, amid reports that European Central Bank chief, Mario Draghi, met on Wednesday with the country's President, Sergio Mattarella, and expressed concern about Rome's public finances, the soon to be released budget bill and recent turbulence in stocks and bonds.
By the end of trading, the benchmark Stoxx 600 was down by 0.86% or 3.27 points to 376.41, alongside a drop of 1.08% or 132.24 points to 12,111.90 for the German Dax and a retreat of 266.97 points or 1.30% to 20,345.96 for the FTSE Mibtel.
In parallel, euro/dollar was drifting lower by 0.01% to 1.1513 and the yield on Italy's benchmark 10-year government note had climbed 10 basis points to 3.42%.
Nevertheless, moves in similarly-dated German and French government note yields were muted, with those on the former up by four basis points at 0.57% while those on the latter increased by only three points to 0.91%.
From a sector standpoint, Basic Resources firms came under the greatest selling pressure, with the corresponding Stoxx 600 sector index down by 2.53% to 449.22, while Technology was down by 2.15% to 455.84.
Still weighing on the latter were reports from the day before that Chinese firms had managed to exploit the security of various US corporate giants, including Amazon.com and Apple, by tinkering with the hardware provided to them by China-based suppliers.
Yet economic data out of the single currency bloc at the end of the week was generally upbeat.
In particular, Germany's Federal Office of Statistics reported a 2.0% increase in factory orders during the month of August (consensus: -0.8%) on the back of a 11.7% surge in orders from outside the euro area.
According to ISTAT, Italian retail sales bounded past forecasts in August, jumping by 0.7% month-on-month (consensus: 0.1%).
In parallel, data from Spain's national statistics office revealed that industrial output in the country rose by 0.7% on the month in August (consensus: 0.8%) and a hefty upwards revision to readings for the previous month.