Europe open: Markets mixed as Pence blasts China
European stocks were mixed on Friday morning as a speech from the US Vice President damaged optimism for a Sino-US trade deal, while calls for a UK general election added to Brexit uncertainty.
At 0904 BST, the Stoxx 600 was 0.2% lower at 396.44, as Germany's Dax dropped by 0.2% to 12,849.85 and the French CAC 40 rose by 0.1% to 5,688.85. London's FTSE 100 was down by 0.2% at 7,316.32.
Hopes for a upcoming resolution to the Sino-US trade dispute were damaged after US Vice President Mike Pence voiced solidarity with Hong Kong protesters, and attacked China's "aggressive and destabilising" policies.
Meanwhile, Congress voted in favour of legislation to prohibit American companies from selling munition equipment, such as tear gas, pepper spray and rubber bullets, to authorities in Hong Kong.
AxiTrader analyst Stephen Innes said: "The US and China have isolated issues from the broader tariff negotiation, Huawei for example. While the Hong Kong issue is exponentially larger than Huawei until more clarity unfolds this could be compartmentalised away from trade talks along with the growing laundry list of US grievances against China."
Back in Europe, EU ambassadors were meeting to discuss a possible three month Brexit deadline delay, as UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson said he would give MPs more time to examine his exit deal if they agreed to a general election in December.
CMC Markets analyst David Madden said: "Boris is bullish, but the Labour Party don’t seem that keen to go head to head with the Tories, presumably because they are performing poorly in the polls.
"The SNP might not be too eager to support a general election either as the recent Progress Scotland survey pointed to a minority of Scots supporting independence."
Meanwhile, data from Germany's Ifo institute showed that the nation's business morale held steady at 94.6 in October, on par with the prior month and just ahead of a consensus forecast for a reading of 94.5.
Among individual stocks, French luxury goods group Kering surged after double digit third quarter sales growth from its Gucci designer brand, with a 16.6% sales increase in the Asia-Pacific region alleviating fears that demonstrations in Hong Kong could hamper trading.
Moncler was also in the green after its third quarter revenue growth exceeded expectations despite the jacket maker having taken a 40% hit to sales in Hong Kong.
French video game developer Ubisoft dived after announcing delays to the release of its Watch Dogs Legion, Gods & Monsters, and Rainbow 6 Quarantine titles following the "underperformance" of Ghost Recon Breakpoint and The Division 2.
United Internet was in the red after cutting its outlook as its investee, telecoms operator 1&1 Drillisch, had its request to retroactively review prices under a 2014 deal with rival Telefonica Deutschland rejected.