European stocks drop to 2-week low on fears over European economic recovery

European stocks fell in early trading on Wednesday, and hit a 2-week low, to deepen losses for the second straight session due to fears that the new lockdown restrictions in Europe might delay the economic recovery.

The Stoxx Europe 600 index fell 0.3% as of 11:38 GMT, and hit the lowest since March 10 at 420.4 points, after closing lower by 0.2% yesterday.

The public utilities sector saw the largest losses in Europe today, falling 1.5%, followed by the retail sector, dropping 1.0%.

The World Health Organization stressed that many regions in the world, especially Europe, are witnessing an surge in Covid-19 cases as the new highly contagious variants continued to spread.

Governments in Germany and France re-imposed lockdown restrictions after a surge in Covid-19 cases, and the spread of the third wave of infections, in addition to the emergence of a new variant of the virus.

S&P 500 futures fell 0.1% ahead of Wall Street opening after the index closed lower by 0.8% yesterday.

Back to Europe, the Euro Stoxx 50 index fell 0.25%, France's CAC 40 fell 0.3%, Germany DAX index fell 0.6%, and the UK's FTSE 100 fell 0.2%.