European stocks fall for second straight session, ahead of US jobs report

European stocks fell slightly at opening on Friday, to head for the second straight daily loss, on investors' risk aversion and concerns over the US-China tensions, and ahead of the US jobs report.

The Stoxx Europe 600 index fell 0.2% as of 09:15 GMT, after it lost 0.7% yesterday, London's stock market and basic materials sector leading the losses.

The pan European index opened lower today, to deepen its losses for second straight session, with most of the major European markets and sectors seeing red today.

The automotive sector saw the largest losses in Europe today, with a drop of over 0.7%, due to fears over the US-China trade relations.

The US jobs report will be released at 12:30 GMT, which delivers key insight on the US labor market recovery.

Analysts forecast that the US economy has added 1.48 million jobs in July, sharply lower than the 4.8 million jobs added in June.

US President Donald Trump issued executive orders on Thursday banning US transactions with Chinese applications WeChat and TikTok for 45 days, which is expected to escalate the ongoing tensions between the world's two largest economies.

S&P 500 futures fell 0.5%, after the index closed higher by 0.6% yesterday at Wall Street, posting the second straight daily gain.

Back to Europe, the Euro Stoxx 50 index fell 0.3%, France's CAC 40 fell 0.6%, Germany's DAX lost 0.1%, and the UK's FTSE 100 lost 0.2%.