European stocks edge lower as sentiment wanes; DAX down 0.16%

Investing.com - European stocks edged lower on Monday, as market sentiment weakened amid fresh concerns over the outlook for global economic growth, following the release of disappointing Japanese data.

During European morning trade, the EURO STOXX 50 declined 0.26%, France’s CAC 40 fell 0.23%, while Germany’s DAX 30 edged down 0.16%
.
Sentiment weakened after official data showed earlier that Japan’s economy grew 0.3% in the three months to June, just half as much as expectations for a 0.6% expansion, from an upwardly revised 1.2% in the first quarter as export demand was hit by the euro zone debt crisis.

The data came hard on the heels of a report on Friday showing that Chinese exports dropped sharply in July, while imports also slowed.

Sentiment remained mildly supported however by hopes the European Central Bank will soon take action to ease the euro zone's sovereign debt crisis.

Among earnings, Germany’s biggest panel-maker Solarworld tumbled 5.36%, after saying it sees lower full-year revenue in 2012 from a year earlier and reporting a second-quarter net loss of EUR161 million.

Swiss money manager Julius Baer also plunged 3.53%, amid reports it agreed to pay about CHF860 million for Bank of America’s Merrill Lynch non-U.S. wealth management business.

On the upside, financial stocks were broadly higher, led by Italian lenders Intesa Sanpaolo and Unicredit, up 1.56% and 1.10% respectively.

France’s Societe Generale and BNP Paribas also added to gains, with shares advancing 0.45% and 0.50%, while German Commerzbank added 0.51%.

In London, FTSE 100 fell 0.27%, weighed by sharp losses in mining stocks.

Copper producers Xstrata and Kazakhmys plummeted 1.25% and 1.07%, while other mining companies such as BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto dropped 0.75% and 0.79% respectively. Rivals Vedanta Resources and Antofagasta plunged 2.06% and 1.15%.

Also on the downside, oil and gas major Anglo American tumbled 1.07%, while BP saw shares fall 0.18%.

In the financial sector, Standard Chartered jumped 1.53%, as the U.K. lender and New York regulators reportedly discussed a settlement amount to resolve the inquiry into whether the bank’s records hid transactions tied to Iran.

Meanwhile, shares in the Royal Bank of Scotland declined 0.90% and HSBC Holdings fell 0.26%, while Lloyds Banking slipped 0.22% and Barclays added 0.11%.

Earlier in the day, Barclays’ new chairman David Walker told U.K. newspaper The Sunday Telegraph that he’ll undertake a top-to-bottom review of the embattled business, adding that he isn’t wedded to any of his predecessor’s policies.

In the U.S., equity markets pointed to a lower open. The Dow Jones Industrial Average futures pointed to a 0.28% fall, S&P 500 futures signaled a 0.35% drop, while the Nasdaq 100 futures indicated a 0.27% decline.

Neither the euro zone or the U.S. were scheduled to release any significant economic data on Monday, so investors were looking ahead to U.S. data on retail sales and inflation later in the week.