European stocks close in red

European stock markets closed in the red on Monday as traders reacted to a further drop in eurozone business activity that offset positive news for Chinese manufacturing, analysts said. London’s FTSE 100 index of top companies lost 0.36 per cent to 6,800.56 points, while Frankfurt’s DAX 30 fell 0.66 per cent to 9,920.92 points and the CAC 40 in Paris slumped 0.57 per cent to 4,515.57 points compared with Friday’s closing levels. The euro dipped to $1.3591 from $1.3597 late in New York on Friday. ‘Stocks in Europe were weak from the offset today as any hopes of a bounce from positive Chinese data were soon undone by concerns over Iraq and missed expectations for European services and manufacturing data,’ said Jasper Lawler, an analyst at CMC Markets. HSBC said early results showed its PMI of Chinese manufacturing came in at 50.8 this month, up from a final reading of 49.4 in May. Anything above 50 indicates growth and anything below suggests contraction. The latest figure is the first time the reading has come in above 50 since December's 50.5, and will raise hopes that a slowdown in the world's second biggest economy has bottomed out. It also follows a recent spate of data indicating a pick-up in the Asian economic giant after the government introduced some measures to kickstart growth, according to AFP.