European shares slide 1% on hawkish Fed signals

On Wednesday, minutes from the Federal Reserve meeting last month showed a tight job market and unrelenting inflation could require the U.S. central bank to raise interest rates sooner than expected and begin reducing its overall asset holdings. Asian shares took cues from an overnight fall in Wall Street indexes, with the tech-heavy Nasdaq plunging more than 3%.

European stocks sank more than 1% on Thursday as hawkish signals from the U.S. Federal Reserve meeting minutes crushed global investor sentiment and sparked a rout in technology stocks.

The pan-European STOXX 600 index lost 1.2% by 0817 GMT, erasing all of its gains for the year that had sent it to record highs. On Wednesday, minutes from the Federal Reserve meeting last month showed a tight job market and unrelenting inflation could require the U.S. central bank to raise interest rates sooner than expected and begin reducing its overall asset holdings.

Asian shares took cues from an overnight fall in Wall Street indexes, with the tech-heavy Nasdaq plunging more than 3%. All European sectors were in negative territory, with technology and media among the biggest losers in early trading with a more than 2% fall.

Adding to pandemic worries, a French government spokesperson said a "supersonic" rise in COVID-19 infections is set to continue in the coming days and there are no signs of the trend reversing.

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