European Shares Slide On Profit Taking

European stocks were moving lower on Tuesday as investors booked profits from a recent rally powered by the vaccine rollouts, falling coronavirus infections and U.S. stimulus hopes.

The downside remained limited after China’s central bank pledged a “stable” monetary policy, helping ease recent concerns about liquidity squeeze.

The pan European Stoxx 600 dropped 0.4 percent to 409.23 after edging up 0.3 percent on Monday.

The German DAX declined 0.6 percent and France’s CAC 40 index was down 0.1 percent while the U.K.’s FTSE 100 was little changed with a negative bias.

Germany’s 10-year bond yield was flat today, after having hit five-month highs on Monday.

ArcelorMittal rose 0.7 percent. The company said that it will sell 40 million Cleveland-Cliffs common shares for gross proceeds of $651.6 million, and that it will use the proceeds to buy back shares in AccelorMittal.

British online retail company Ocado fell over 1 percent after narrowing its annual loss.

Bellway shares rallied 2.7 percent. The property developer said it now expects housing completions for the full year to July 31, 2021 to increase to around 9,800 homes versus 7,522 last year.

Software company Micro Focus surged 4.1 percent after reinstating its dividend.

Total SE rose about 1 percent. After reporting better-than-expected fourth quarter earnings, the French energy company pledged more cash for greener energy.

Osram Licht, the German maker of lighting products, was down 0.7 percent after announcing that it is looking to sell its digital business unit.

Travel firm TUI AG dropped 0.6 percent after reporting a wider net loss for the first quarter of fiscal 2021.

In economic releases, German exports rose marginally in December, data from Destatis revealed. Exports gained 0.1 percent month on month, slower than the 2.3 percent increase in November. Economists had forecast a monthly fall of 1 percent.

At the same time, imports decreased 0.1 percent, following a 5.4 percent rebound logged a month ago. Imports were expected to decline more sharply by 1.1 percent.

Elsewhere, data out of U.K. showed the country’s retail sales declined for the first time since last spring.

Total sales decreased 1.3 percent on a yearly basis in January as the current lockdown has hit non-essential retailers harder than in November, data from the British Retail Consortium showed. Like-for-like sales grew 7.1 percent.