In a challenging trading day, European stock markets faced declines on Tuesday, as indicated by the Stoxx Europe 600 which fell by 0.21%. The Swiss Market Index experienced a notable drop of 0.76%, while the FTSE in London decreased by 0.14%. Germany's DAX also slid, down by 0.20%, and France's CAC 40 ended the day just slightly lower with a decrease of 0.01%.
This downturn reflects growing market concerns as economic forecasts adjust. The International Monetary Fund has recently revised its growth projections for the euro area, downgrading GDP growth expectations for 2024 and 2025 through its latest World Economic Outlook, released on Tuesday. The IMF has now set the euro area's GDP growth forecast at 0.8% for 2024 and 1.2% for 2025, which is a reduction from its July outlook of 0.9% and 1.5%, respectively.
Conversely, an encouraging sign arose as the IMF raised its growth prediction for the UK to 1.1% in 2024 from its previous estimate of 0.7%, keeping the forecast for 2025 steady at 1.5%. In other economic metrics, the euro area's government deficit to GDP ratio has incrementally increased to 3.6% in 2023, up from 3.5% in 2022, while within the EU, it rose to 3.5% in 2023 from 3.2% in the previous year.
On a more positive note, the euro area's government debt to GDP ratio decreased to 87.4% at the end of 2023 compared to 89.5% at the end of 2022. Similarly, in the EU, this ratio improved to 80.8% from 82.5%. Corporate developments were also prominent in the news. ASML, a leading Dutch semiconductor company, witnessed a 1.4% rise in its stock in Amsterdam after its Chief Executive Christophe Fouquet expressed in an interview the expectation of heightened US pressure to further restrict semiconductor technology sales to China. In the financial services sector, HSBC, a major British bank, announced the appointment of Pam Kaur as the group chief financial officer.
Kaur's new role will begin on January 1, following a successful tenure since joining the bank in 2013 as the group chief risk and compliance officer. Additionally, HSBC’s French life insurance division is considering bids and has garnered interest from prominent players including BNP Paribas, BPCE, and Matmut.
While HSBC and BPCE refrained from commenting, other institutions like BNP Paribas, Credit Mutuel Arkea, Groupama, and Cerberus Capital did not respond to requests for comments from MT Newswires. Notably, shares of HSBC saw a 0.9% increase by the time markets closed in London. In biotech news, Grifols, a Spanish biopharmaceutical company, announced a partnership with the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) to assess experimental ocular surface immunoglobulin eye drops aimed at treating damage from exposure to sulfur mustard, a chemical warfare agent.
This development boosted Grifols' shares by 1.7% in Madrid. Finally, Carlyle Group has exited the bidding for the warship division of German steelmaker Thyssenkrupp, according to reports from Reuters, which cited an email from the industrial engineering and steel production company. Both Carlyle and Thyssenkrupp have not promptly responded to inquiries from MT Newswires.
Following this news, Thyssenkrupp's shares saw a significant decline, dropping over 4% in Frankfurt..