European Stocks Fall; British Airways Owner Crashes on Brussels Impact

Frankfurt (Apr 29)  European stocks sunk on Friday as airline stocks crashed following a warning from the parent of British Airways.

Meanwhile, a mixed bag of economic data included the European Union's statistics arm's first take on GDP figures for the first quarter. It said Eurozone GPD had expanded by 0.6%, above the 0.4% predicted.

Earlier in the day separate data also put French and Spanish GDP growth ahead of consensus expectations, with the economies expanding by 0.5% and 0.8%, respectively, in the first quarter.

But eurozone consumer price figures showed deflation had returned to the region in April, with prices down 0.2% on the year, compared with the 0.1% deflation rate analysts had predicted.

By mid-morning in London the FTSE 100 was down 0.64% at 6,282.22. In Frankfurt, the Dax fell 1.04% to 10,214.25 and in Paris, the Cac 40 fell 1.38% to 4,494.37

S&P 500 mini futures were recently down 0.12%.

British Airways owner International Consolidated Airlines (ICAGY) was down close to 4% in London after the company warned in a first-quarter update that security fears in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks in Brussels had hit revenue in the second quarter. Peers including Deutsche Lufthansa (DLAKY) and Air France-KLM (AFRAF) also fell.

Also in the leisure sector, Restaurant Group plunged about 22% in London after warning that business had deteriorated since its March 9 full-year results announcement and it now expects full-year same-store sales to be down between 2.5% and 5% lower, pushing pretax profit down to between £74 million to £80 million ($108.1 million and $116.8 million) from £86.8 million the previous year.

Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS - Get Report) was down about 3% in London after it announced a more than doubling of its first-quarter loss to £968 million. On Thursday, RBS had warned of yet another delay in the sale of around 300 branches it has to shed to comply with the terms of European Commission clearance of its 2008/2009 government bailout.

Anheuser-Busch InBev  (BUD)  was down close to 3% in Brussels after announcing it had offered to sell a slew of breweries in central and Eastern Europe - on top of concessions it made earlier - to win European Commission approval for its purchase of nearest rival SABMiller.

Pharmaceuticals company Sanofi (SNY) fell more than 2.5% in Paris and AstraZeneca (AZN) edged marginally higher in London after both posted almost flat first-quarter sales, with AstraZeneca earnings figures coming in slightly above expectations. Sanofi revealed yesterday it has made an unsolicited $9.3 billion offer to buy cancer biotech Medivation (MDVN) .

In Madrid, telecom Telefónica (TEF) was down 1.6% after a mixed bag of first-quarter results revealed a disappointing turnout in the U.K.

Asian indices were mixed. Tokyo indices were closed for a public holiday, protecting Japanese exporters from the share-price impact of a steep rise in the value of the yen.

On mainland China, the CSI 300 composite index closed down 0.12% at 3,156.745 and in Hong Kong, the Hang Seng fell 1.41% to close at 21,085.94.

Source: TheStreet