European stocks slide on BES woes

European stock markets fell back on Thursday afternoon on the back of weak industrial output data and a growing crisis at Portugal’s largest lender, Banco Espirito Santo. London’s FTSE 100 lost 0.68 per cent to close at 6,672.37 points, after the Bank of England (BoE) held interest rates as expected at a record-low 0.50 per cent. Frankfurt’s DAX 30 slid 1.52 per cent to 9,659.13 points, and the Paris CAC 40 dropped by 1.34 per cent to 4,301.26. Milan's FTSE Mib was down 1.90 per cent, Madrid's Ibex 35 fell 1.98 per cent and in Lisbon, the PSI 20 tumbled 4.18 per cent. Gloomy market sentiment turned completely sour after Portugal was rocked by a growing crisis surrounding Banco Espirito Santo (BES), the nation’s biggest bank by market capitalisation.
- Eurozone woes -
On Thursday morning, France and Italy became the latest big European economies to post poor industrial output data, with Italian production falling the most since November 2012. Germany and Britain have already issued disappointing figures for May, raising fears that Europe's economic recovery may be stalling. The most recent data, "confirms the weakness of the eurozone" and "provided the excuse to finally kick start the summer volatility trade into life," remarked Chris Beauchamp, an IG market analyst, according to AFP.