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Europe midday: Stocks hold lower despite buoyant company updates
Stocks are holding lower - but off their worst levels of the session - with the release of a more hawkish than expected set of policy meeting minutes in the US and a weak reading on German business confidence offsetting upbeat corporate updates.
As of 1159 GMT, the benchmark Stoxx 600 was down by 0.73% or 2.79 points to 378.31, alongside a fall of 0.82% or 101.78 points to 12,368.37 for the German Dax and a dip of 0.65% or 148.16 points to 22,504.80 in the FTSE Mibtel.
Euro/dollar meanwhile was up 0.06% to 1.2284 and the yield on the benchmark 10-year Bund essentially flat at 0.72% following an early morning dip.
Overnight, the minutes of US Federal Reserve policymakers' meeting on 30-31 January revealed that "a majority of participants noted that a stronger outlook for economic growth raised the likelihood that further gradual policy firming would be appropriate."
That sent US government bond yields immediately higher, which in turn weighed on Wall Street, although come Monday morning they were retracing part of that move.
Commenting on trading conditions in the market on Thursday, David Madden at CMC Markets UK said: "Stock markets are weaker today after the Federal Reserve released the minutes of their latest meeting last night.
"The update pointed out that prices are ticking up and the inflation rate is likely to hit their target of 2%. This spooked traders in the US last night, and the sell-off spilled over to Asia and now it has triggered selling in Europe. The prospect of higher interest rates in the US could put pressure on over-indebted American companies as their borrowing costs would creep up."
Also dampening sentiment, the IFO institute's business confidence gauge for Germany retreated from a reading of 117.6 points in January to 115.4 for February, although the think-tank pointed out that it remained at its second highest level since 1991.
Company-wise, shares of Hennes & Mauritz AB were still under pressure in the wake of data showing that so-called 'short interest' in the Swedish fashion retailer had climbed to over 9% of the shares outstanding, according to data provided by IHS Markit.
Shares in France's Bouygues Telecom were defying the downwards pull from the wider market after delivering full-year top line growth of 4% to reach 32.9bn but a 62% jump in operating profits to 1.53bn.
Pacing gains on the Stoxx 600, Dutch biotech outfit Genmab's shares were running up 15% after soothing investors' worries on the outlook for sales of its blood cancer treatment Darzalex.
Dutch lender KBC's shares were also advancing in the wake of its fourth quarter results.
Further South, in Spain, Telefonica stock got a lift from news that its full-year 2017 net profits soared 32.2% to hit 3.13bn.
In other news, oil major Repsol sold a 20% stake in Gas Natural to Rioja Bidco Shareholdings, controlled by private equity outfit CVC, for 3.82bn.