European shares dip as lower commodity prices weigh

By Shristi Achar A and Pranav Kashyap

(Reuters) -European shares fell on Friday and were set for weekly losses, hurt by lower commodity prices and as a rout in global technology shares weighed, even as airlines, media companies, banks and telecoms firms around the world said system outages were disrupting their operations.

The pan-European STOXX 600 index fell 0.6% by 0834 GMT, slipping to a more than two-week low, amid a broader selloff across sectors.

Travel and leisure shares led losses with a 2.6% drop and were on course to log their worst day in more than a month, driven by a 9.3% fall in Evolution after it maintained its full-year guidance.

Miners shed 2.1%, weighing the most on the benchmark index, on lower commodity prices due to the lack of Chinese stimulus measures. [MET/L]

German shares lost 0.9% after producer prices in the regions largest economy fell by 1.6% on the year in June, in line with analysts' expectations in a Reuters poll.

The benchmark index was on course to log its fifth consecutive session of losses and a weekly decline as investors grapple with political developments in the United States and tougher trade rules that led to a rout in technology shares.

Tech shares were down 0.7% on the day and on track to clock a more than 7% loss for the week.

"It's a little bit of a perfect storm of the impact on Europe of this significant rotation out of tech in the U.S. combined with some earnings disappointments in Europe this quarter,' said Ben Laidler, head of equity strategy at Bradesco BBI.

Lack of policy direction from the European Central Bank also added to investors' uncertainty.

Separately, LSEG Group's Workspace news and data platform suffered an outage on Friday that affected user access worldwide, causing disruption across financial markets, alongside a global cyber outage.

"Investors are already on edge for this tech rotation and this global outage adds a further dose of uncertainty," Laidler said.

Among other stocks, Sartorius was down 11.8% after the pharmaceutical equipment supplier cut its full-year guidance.

On the flip side, Danske Bank, Denmark's biggest lender, surged 7.3% as it beat second-quarter net profit expectations, helped by strong credit quality and higher net interest income and on an interim dividend for shareholders.

Electrolux added 2.7% after the world's second-biggest appliances maker posted a quarterly operating profit above estimates, helped by cost cutting.

(Reporting by Shubham Batra, Shristi Achar A and Pranav Kashyap in Bengaluru; Editing by Mrigank Dhaniwala)