European stocks fell on Friday, with investors discouraged by a lack of progress in Greek debt crisis negotiations heading into crunch talks at the weekend.
Greece had again failed to clinch a deal with its international creditors on Thursday, setting up a last-ditch effort on Saturday to avert a default next week or start preparing to protect the euro zone from financial market turmoil.
The pan-European FTSEurofirst 300 index was down 0.7 per cent at 1,562.40 points by 0706 GMT.
Traders said the high amount of uncertainty ahead of the negotiations made investors unwilling to leave themselves exposed heading into the weekend.
“By the time the markets reopen next week, Greece may have either secured a deal or accepted default to the IMF,’’ Craig Erlam, senior market analyst at OANDA, said in a note.
“With all this in mind, I expect to see significant risk aversion this morning with investors preparing for fireworks over the week-end.’’
Comments
Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.
We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of TheHindu Businessline and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.