- Burberry drops to STOXX 600 bottom on CEO exit, profit warning
- ECB President Christine Lagarde to speak later in the day
- STOXX 600 down 0.1%
July 15 (Reuters) - European shares moved lower on Monday after a raft of dour updates from companies made investors, already jittery from the assassination attempt on U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump, more cautious.
The continent-wide STOXX 600 was down 0.1% as of 0844 GMT, snapping a three-session win streak.
Leading losses were shares of Burberry, down 15.1% after the British luxury group named former Michael Kors boss Joshua Schulman as its new chief executive, axeing Jonathan Akeroyd after two years as it warned on profit and scrapped its dividend.
Swatch Group fell 10.8% as the world's biggest watchmaker reported a steep fall in first-half sales and earnings.
Personal and household goods sector, housing both the stocks fell 1% and led sectoral declines.
"The luxury sector is also under the negative impact of the number that we got from China," said Ipek Ozkardeskaya, senior market analyst at Swissquote Bank.
"The latest numbers were boosted by some kind of base effects where they were compared with weak base. However, moving forward, all that base effect's positive impact is going to be waning."
Data showed China's economy grew much slower than expected in the second quarter, keeping alive expectations Beijing will need to unleash even more stimulus.
Miners also shed 0.8%, tracking lower base metal prices on the data.
Meanwhile, Donald Trump will be formally nominated as the Republican presidential candidate in Milwaukee later this week after surviving an assassination attempt that has aggravated an already bitter U.S. political divide, with traders weighing its impact on financial markets.
European equities logged two consecutive weeks of gains on Friday with expectations of rate cuts from both, the European Central Bank and the U.S. Federal Reserve spurring risk appetite.
Focus will now be on ECB President Christine Lagarde's remarks later in the day, ahead of the central bank's policy meeting later this week.
Among other stocks, Nordea lost 4.2% after the Finnish bank reported second-quarter operating earnings just below expectations.
Deutsche Bank analysts expect the lender to post a loss for the second quarter, according to a new consensus forecast posted on the bank's website. Its shares were up 0.3%.
TomTom dropped 8.8% after the digital mapping specialist suspended its revenue target for 2025 and trimmed its expectations for this year as weak demand for new cars weighs on its automotive location technology business.
Reporting by Shristi Achar A in Bengaluru; Editing by Nivedita Bhattacharjee and Sohini Goswami
Source: Reuters