European Stocks Fall On Russia Sanctions

(RTTNews) - European stocks fell broadly on Thursday as Ukraine worries resurfaced in the wake of fresh sanctions against Russia. The U.S. and EU have slapped fresh sanctions on Russia, targeting major banks and energy companies, given the country's continued provocations in Ukraine.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has denounced the latest sanctions, saying they will boomerang and hit back at U.S. national interests.

The Euro Stoxx 50 index of eurozone bluechip stocks fell 1.47 percent. France's CAC 40 dropped 1.2 percent, Germany's DAX lost 1.07 percent, and the FTSE of the UK slid 0.68 percent.

Alfa Laval AB fell 3.3 percent in Stockholm after the company reported lower EBITDA margin in its second quarter and warned it sees sequentially flat demand in the third quarter.

TeliaSonera AB lost 2 percent as the Swedish telecommunications firm reported a decline in second-quarter profit on weak net sales and cut its full-year revenue outlook.

Carrefour Group was down 1 percent in Paris. The French grocery retailer reported second-quarter 2014 consolidated sales of 20.52 billion euros, a 5.2 percent increase at constant exchange rates and a 0.3 percent improvement at current exchange rates year-over-year.

SAP shares added 1.2 percent in Frankfurt after the business software giant lifted its forecast for fiscal 2014 cloud subscriptions and support revenue, and backed software and software-related service revenue and operating profit forecast. The company reported strong growth in cloud revenue in the second quarter.

Pharmaceutical giant Novartis AG said its second-quarter profit improved slightly from the prior year,amid a small growth in sales. The company backed its full-year outlook. Shares were down 1.7 percent.

In economic releases, Eurozone inflation held steady at 0.5 percent in what the European Central Bank calls the danger zone, as initially estimated in June, final data from Eurostat showed. Prices gained only 0.1 percent from the previous month.

Eurozone construction output fell 1.5 percent in May after increasing 0.4 percent in the previous month, which was revised down from 0.8 percent reported initially, figures from Eurostat showed.