(Reuters) – European shares opened lower on Tuesday, as industrial stocks came under pressure following Airbus’s dour update, while technology shares slumped tracking an overnight selloff on Wall Street.
The continent-wide STOXX 600 fell 0.3% by 0707 GMT, with Airbus, dropping 8.4%, being among the biggest drag on the index, after Europe’s largest aerospace group cut industrial and financial targets, and took a hefty 900 million euro ($965 million) charge for its troubled space activities.
The industrial goods and services sector dropped 1.5% early on.
The tech sub-index, which houses some of Europe’s biggest chip-related firms, dropped 1.5% tracking overnight weakness in U.S. bellwether Nvidia.
Germany’s Merck shed 8.7%, after the drug maker said it has stopped its trials for xevinapant in advanced head and neck cancer.
The market’s focus would remain on the first round of French parliamentary elections later in the week, with Paris stock market operator Euronext’s CEO stating that the prospect of a politically extreme party with little or no government experience reaching power is worrying investors.
(Reporting by Shashwat Chauhan in Bengaluru and Jesus Calero in Gdansk; Editing by Rashmi Aich)
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