Major stock indices in Europe show moderate losses

European stocks fall amid disappointing corporate reports, as well as the decline in oil prices.

On Tuesday the European market focus remained on corporate reports, with focus on some of the banks.

At the same time on Wednesday, oil prices fell more than 1% to three-week low after the American Petroleum Institute said that US crude stocks rose by 4.8 million barrels for the week ended 21 of October.

US Energy Information Administration to release its weekly report on crude oil inventories today at 14:30 GMT. The data may show growth in US crude inventories by 1.69 million barrels.

Published on Wednesday morning, the data on consumer confidence in Germany pointed to decrease to 9.7 index points, while analysts had expected a pullback to 10 points. This was the lowest value of the consumer confidence index in 4 months.

"Despite the slightly more pessimistic outlook for personal finances, consumers believe that the economic outlook has improved, and the corresponding index rose to a maximum of more than one year", - said Mantas Vanagas, an economist at Daiwa Capital Markets Europe.

Meanwhile, the consumer confidence index in France, compiled by the INSEE statistics agency, in October rose to the highest since 2007. The index reached a level of 98 points, but remains below 100 points, long-term average since 1987.

The composite index of the largest companies in the region Stoxx Europe 600 fell 0,7% - to 340.7 points.

The cost of the British bank Lloyds fell 3,1%. Lloyds has cut profits in the 3rd quarter of 2016 due to new costs for compensation. The bank committed an additional 1 billion pounds ($ 1.2 billion) for payments in this case in the last quarter.

Antofagasta shares fell 7.6%. The mining company has increased its production of copper in the third quarter of this year, but said that on the basis of production, the index is likely to be close to the lower limit of its forecast of 710-740 ths tons.

Anglo American shares fell in price by 2%, BHP Billiton - 1,8%, Rio Tinto - 0.9%.

Shares of oil companies are getting cheaper as BP Plc's share price has fallen to 1,5%, Total SA - 1,3%, Royal Dutch Shell -1.6%.

Shares of Banco Santander rose 1.2%. The Spanish bank, which has the largest market value in the euro area, increased its net profit in the 3rd quarter of this year to 1.7 billion euros compared with 1.68 billion euros a year earlier.

At the moment:

FTSE 6959.18 -58.46 -0.83%

DAX 10657.13 -100.18 -0.93%

CAC 4508.34 -32.50 -0.72%