By Sara Sjolin, MarketWatch
LONDON (MarketWatch) -- European stock markets retreated on
Thursday after more disappointing German data fueled concerns about
the region's growth prospects and the European Central Bank left
interest rates unchanged.
The losses came after the major indexes snapped a two-day losing
run on Wednesday, boosted by a raft of healthy earnings
reports.
ECB decision: The region's central bank, as expected, left
interest rates unchanged, keeping the main lending rate at 0.05%
and the deposit rate at minus 0.2%.
Attention now turns to ECB President Mario Draghi's news
conference at 1:30 p.m. London time. or 8:30 a.m. Eastern, where
questions on corporate bond purchases are likely to be a main
point.
Leading up to Thursday's decision, Reuters reported that strains
between Draghi and fellow policy makers are becoming more
pronounced, which could also be a topic of the news conference.
Read: ECB discord could 'neuter' Draghi's power
The Bank of England also left interest rates unchanged.
Data: Industrial data for Germany in September took markets by
surprise on Thursday, showing that new orders rose by 0.8%, well
short of economists' estimates of a 2% rise. However, data for
August were revised to show the drop then wasn't as deep as
originally reported.
Christian Schulz, senior economist at Berenberg, said in a note
that the country's rough patch, which started in early spring, was
likely to weigh on growth in the second half of 2014.
"But the evidence is mounting that Germany will probably not
have a mild technical recession," or two consecutive quarters on
negative growth, he said.
Market reaction: The Stoxx Europe 600 index fell 0.4% to 334.88,
after scoring a 1.7% gain on Wednesday. Read: AstraZeneca slides;
Adidas jumps: Europe's big stock movers
France's CAC 40 index lost 0.3% to 4,198.07, while Germany's DAX
30 index gave up 0.2% to 9,299.35. The U.K.'s FTSE 100 index fell
0.2% to 6,528.98.
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