European shares were led lower by tech stocks on Friday as they tracked losses among global peers following an earning miss at Amazon, while a flurry of company results failed to provide support.
The region's tech index, the top performer so far this year, was down 1.5 per cent, helping drag the pan-European STOXX 600 index down 1.1 per cent by 0839 GMT. Britain's FTSE fell 0.5 per cent, while export-orientated German blue-chips, lately penalised by a strong euro, fell 0.7 per cent.
“Weighing on the markets is not only disappointing results from Amazon and the strong euro, seasonally we are also nearing the end of July where traders like to take some profits,” City of London Markets trader Markus Huber said.
The STOXX is set to end the month down 0.3 per cent, with a weekly fall of 0.5 per cent.
“However the overall picture remains fine, the euro zone economy seems to be powering ahead nicely,” Huber said.
Data from France showed that the economy in the euro zone's second-largest economy grew an expected 0.5 per cent, helped by a surge in exports.
Turning to company results, Deutsche Bank strategists said the earnings season was picking up with strong beats in the energy, telecoms and financial sectors while consumer, utilities and industrials stocks have seen net misses.
According to Thomson Reuters IBES data, almost 40 per cent of companies in the MSCI Europe index have reported results with 52 per cent beating earnings estimates and 7 per cent matching them. Second-quarter earnings growth is expected at 19.7 per cent.
Deutsche said just last week earnings beats were fewer than half of the companies that had reported. While no sector was in positive territory, banks were a weak spot, led lower by a 3.7 per cent drop in UBS, the world's biggest asset manager, after results which Baader Helvea said were relatively soft.
“We believe, the market will once again raise concerns about a disappointing WMs (wealth management) gross margin dynamic," Baader said in a note without changing its “buy” rating on UBS.
Among other banks which reported results were Credit Suisse and Barclays , whose stocks were up 2 and 0.5 per cent, respectively. Among top STOXX fallers were shares in Renault and Essilior, which also reported results.
A bright spot was Adidas, up 8.8 per cent to a record high as the group raised its full-year outlook after improving margins helped the German sportswear maker achieve an 18 per cent jump in second-quarter operating profit.
“The increase in revenue guidance will also likely ease continuing concerns on sustainability of growth,” Goldman Sachs said in a note, lifting its price target on the stock.