Europe midday: Stocks down ahead of US decision on Iran deal
Stocks are holding lower ahead of the expected announcement later in the day from the White House about whether the US administration will remain in the multilateral nuclear deal with Iran.
During the previous session, crude oil futures hit 42-month highs after President Donald Trump said on Twitter the decision would be announced at 1900 BST on Tuesday.
"Iran is one of the largest oil suppliers in the world, and the fear surrounding the possibility of the US withdrawing from the Iranian deal is fuelling the buying," said David Madden at CMC Markets UK.
Also weighing on sentiment was a down-draft in Italian stocks after President Sergio Mattarella called on the main political parties to rally behind a caretaker government.
But with the two main populist parties, Five Star and League, having indicated that they would not support it, fresh elections were now likely in the summer and, according to analysts, might result in a coalition between the two.
The news saw the yield on the benchmark 10-year Italian government bond soar 10 basis points 1.86%.
Against that backdrop, as of 1205 BST the benchmark Stoxx 600 was down by 0.25% or 0.99 points to 388.52, alongside a 0.57% or 75.10 point fall on the German Dax to 12,871.08 and a retreat of 2.10% or 516.82 points on the FTSE Mibtel to 24,027.94.
In parallel, front month Brent crude oil futures were down by 1.1% to $75.34 a barrel on the ICE and the Stoxx 600's Oil&Gas sector index was falling by 1.05%.
To take note of, in the background traders were also keeping close tabs on weakness in Emerging Market currencies, especially in the Turkish lira and Indonesian rupiah after Argentina's central bank was forced to hike rates for the third time in under a week on 4 May to bolster its currency.
On the economic front meanwhile, German industrial production jumped by 1.0% month-on-month in March, according to the country's Ministry of Finance, led by an outsized 2.6% increase in the manufacture of capital goods.
Separately, the German Ministry of Finance reported that the country's seasonally adjusted trade surplus rose from €19.5bn in February to €20.0bn for March.
Unicredit was in the spotlight on the heels of a Financial Times report that hedge fund Caius Capital had told European authorities that the lender's equity capital was invalid under EU rules if the bank did not convert nearly €3.0bn of complex instruments into ordinary shares.
Shares of Italian lenders were down across the board on Tuesday, with sharp losses in UbiBanca, Banco Bpm and Bper Banca.
German insurer Allianz was also lower after the the insurance giant's chief told the FT he is open to a merger of equals, but that high valuations stand in the way.
The news sent the company's stock down by 0.85%.
Shares of T-Mobile on the other hand were gaining ground despite the "serious concerns" expressed by some US Democratic lawmakers about the carrier's plans to acquire US rival T-Mobile.