European Shares Slide On Hawkish Fed Remarks

European stocks fell on Tuesday, with rising bond yields, Russia’s renewed campaign in eastern Ukraine, worries over economic slowdown and expectations of aggressive monetary tightening by the U.S. Federal Reserve keeping investors on edge.

Bonds climbed after St. Louis Fed President James Bullard said that rate increases of 75 basis points could be considered, if needed to combat inflation.

The pan-European Stoxx Europe 600 index was down 0.8 percent at 456.07 after the World Bank cut its forecast for global economic expansion this year on Russia’s invasion.

The German DAX and France’s CAC 40 index both dipped around half a percent ahead of the French Presidential election run-off vote while the U.K.’s FTSE 100 was down 0.4 percent.

Travel and leisure stocks were broadly lower after rising on Friday.

Banks traded mostly higher, with Commerzbank, BNP Paribas and Credit Agricole rising around 1 percent each.

Franc’s SCOR lost more than 5 percent after the global reinsurance company said it expects the conflict in Ukraine and other natural catastrophe events will cause it to report a loss for the first-quarter of 2022.

Miners Anglo American and Antofagasta and Glencore rose between 1 percent and 1.7 percent as copper and other industrial metals climbed.

BP Plc advanced 1.2 percent and Royal Dutch Shell added 1.8 percent as oil prices stabilized after climbing to a three-week high on Monday.

Spectris, a supplier of precision instrumentation and controls, jumped 5.5 percent after announcing the sale of Omega Engineering to Arcline Investment Management for $525 million.