European shares fell on Monday as fears a trade war could have a bigger impact than expected on China added to concerns that rising US interest rates are gradually making stock markets less attractive.
Shares in Asia slumped overnight despite Beijing’s central bank increasing liquidity to offset the effects of the tariff row with the United States.
At 0813 GMT, the pan-European STOXX 600 benchmark index was down 0.6 per cent. Germany's DAX .GDAXI also declined 0.6 per cent and the UK's FTSE .FTSE fell 0.3 per cent, reports Reuters.
In Italy the FTSE MIB was down 1.4 per cent to its lowest since 21 April 2017.
However, Europe’s biggest standalone investment firm, Britain’s Schroders (SDR.L) rose 1.2 per cent after it said it was in talks with Lloyds in what could lead to one of the biggest recent deals in the wealth management industry.