European stock markets experienced a downward trend in Friday's trading session. The Stoxx Europe index saw a drop of 0.58%, while Germany's DAX decreased by 0.17%. London's FTSE lost 0.14%, France’s CAC fell by 0.15%, and Switzerland's Market Index slipped by 0.18%. The latest seasonally adjusted industrial production figures for October showed a modest increase of 0.3% in the European Union, remaining flat in the euro area compared to September.
Year-on-year comparisons indicated a decrease of 0.8% in the EU and a 1.2% decline in the euro area. In the UK, the preliminary data revealed a 0.1% decline in the monthly real GDP for October compared to September, primarily attributed to reduced production output, as reported by the Office for National Statistics. Meanwhile, in France, the consumer price index experienced a slight decrease of 0.1% in November relative to October, although it increased by 1.3% compared to the same month last year.
The National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies noted that the minor decline was linked to a seasonal reduction in airfare prices. Spain also reported an uptick in its annual consumer price index, which rose from 1.8% in the previous month to 2.4% in November. The Spanish Statistical Office highlighted that this rise was influenced by increasing costs in housing and transportation. In the corporate sector, HSBC is currently reviewing its retail banking operations beyond its core markets of the UK and Hong Kong, with aims to identify potential cost-cutting measures, as revealed by the Financial Times, which cited sources familiar with the matter.
HSBC has yet to respond to inquiries from MT Newswires. Additionally, shares of Rentokil surged 3.5% in London following an announcement in an SEC filing that non-executive company director Brian Baldwin purchased 7.5 million shares at a price of 413.4137 pence each, totaling approximately 31 million British pounds ($39.3 million). In regulatory news, the UK's Competition and Markets Authority is investigating BlackRock's proposed acquisition of Preqin, a British financial data and analytics provider. Lastly, Novo Nordisk, a Danish pharmaceutical company, announced that it received a favorable opinion from the European Medicines Agency regarding an update to Ozempic's label, which will now include information on the risk reduction of kidney disease progression in adults suffering from type 2 diabetes and chronic kidney disease..