Stocks on the Continent finished lower, despite 'dovish' remarks from the head of the European Central Bank on the outlook for monetary policy, weighed down by a dip on Wall Street shortly after the start of trading on Wall Street.
Speaking at The ECB and Its Watchers conference on Wednesday morning, ECB chief Mario Draghi said rate-setters needed to be patient, persistent and prudent, adding that risks and uncertainties to the outlook remained.
As of the closing bell, the benchmark Stoxx 600 was lower by 0.15% or 0.55 points at 374.94, alongside a 0.18% or 9.43 point dip on the Cac-40 to 5,233.56, although Germany's Dax was up by 0.14% or 16.71 points to 12,237.74.
In parallel, euro/dollar was dipping 0.17% to 1.2373, weighed down in part by figures showing that US final demand prices advanced by 2.8% year-on-year in February, with Barclays Research saying the data pointed to "stable price pressures in the pipeline".
Nevertheless, figures showing a third consecutive fall in monthly retail sales volumes were weighing on stockmarkets in the States.
On the other hand, earlier in the day China's National Bureau of Statistics reported a 7.2% year-on-year increase in the country's idnustrial output over the first two months of 2018 (consensus: 6.2%).
That appeared to offset the drag overnight from Tuesday's news that US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson had been sacked by the White House.
On that note, one City-based analyst was pointing out to clients a report in the NY Times according to which more personnel changes were expected in the White House over the coming week.
Speaking of the US administration, on Wednesday morning European Council president Donald Tusk urged the US president to "make trade not war".
"We are not happy either [...] That is the reason why a few years ago we started trade negotiations with the U.S. We should go back to these talks now."
In regional economic news, Eurostat Industrial production data in the euro area for January printed well below forecasts, coming in at down by 1.0% month-on-month (consensus: -0.4%), amid a 6.6% drop in output of energy and a 1.4% fall in that of durable consumer goods.
Spanish retail sales grew at a 2.5% year-on-year clip in January, INE said, just as expected.
Company-wise, Adidas was in the spotlight after the announcement that it would buy back as many as €3.0bn-worth of shares by 2021 sent shares sharply higher.
In other news, Italy's Atlantia agreed to step out of its bid for Spain's Abertis, leaving the field open for Madrid-based ACS, allowing the firm to remain Spanish albeit with Rome-based Atlantia gaining control afterwards.
The transaction would also allow the two to avoid a costly bidding war.
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