2014.07.0406:14:21UTC+00European shares down on weak bank stocks, US holiday

European shares inched down in opening trade on Friday as it was dragged down by Austria’s Erste Bank’s profit warning that weighed heavily on banking stocks and eventually wider indexes.

The pan-European Euro Stoxx 600 Index trickled down following a powerful advance in the previous session buoyed by the better-than-expected US economic data on US non-farm pyrolls that amounted to 288,000 works filled for the month of June.

UK’s FTSE 100 Index and IBEX 35 declined by 0.09% or 6.40 pips to 6858.81 and 0.30% or 32.90 to 11,057.10 respectively. Germany’s DAX and France’s CAC 40 also dragged with a 0.10% loss or 9.73 pips to 10,019.70 and a 0.13% decline or 5.85 pips to 4484.03 respectively.

The banking sector was pulled down by the Erste Group whose shares plummeted by 13% to 20.51 euros in the morning trade on Friday after its announcement that pushed investors to bail on its stocks. The Raiffeisen Bank also wasn’t safe from the bank declines as it lost 4.2%. Most of the banking sector traded in the red.

UK’s Easyjet was a winner in the trade as it collected 3% following an account that showed that its traffic had a 10% increase in June. Europe’s second biggest discount airline had data showing that for June it had an approximate of 6.1 million passengers. It had a significant increase from last year’s 5.54 million.