European stocks may drift lower for the fourth straight session Tuesday, taking cues from a negative close on Wall Street overnight, as concerns that global economic growth might be slowing intensified.
Copper fell in London on a firmer dollar and crude futures are hovering near $97 a barrel, pressured by concerns over global crude demand, while Asian stock markets are trading mixed. Markets in Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore are closed for a public holiday.
European finance ministers asked Greece to do more to improve its fiscal position in order to fetch extra aid even as they approved a three-year bailout package worth 78 billion euros ($115 billion) for Portugal to help the EU member-nation resolve its financial problems.
"Ministers concur with the Commission and the ECB that providing a loan to Portugal is warranted to safeguard financial stability in the euro area and the EU as a whole," read a statement released after the ministers' meeting, which was marked by the absence of IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn, who is currently under detention in New York on charges of sexually assaulting a hotel maid.
The two-day meeting of the ministers discussed the possibility of asking the Greece's private creditors to extend the maturities on their bonds, thus extending Greece's debt-repayment schedule.
Another option is reprofiling of Greek debt, which is entirely different from debt restructuring, reports quoted Luxembourg Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker as saying. Juncker chairs the Eurogroup panel of eurozone finance ministers.
Meanwhile, a Greek sovereign default would be "highly destabilizing" for banks, causing losses that "far exceed" the size of their loans and investments, ratings agency Moody's Investors Service said in a note.
"Counterparties, including other banks, may become risk-averse and withdraw funds where there is even a slight concern about exposure to Greece or other peripheral EU sovereigns. This can lead to a vicious cycle whereby banks considered weak lose access to market funding and possibly face deposit withdrawals, pressuring liquidity," Moody's said.
In corporate news, French media, entertainment and telecoms conglomerate Vivendi said that it has signed a new bank loan with 17 banks for a total amount of €5 billion.
Bouygues SA said its profit for the first-quarter declined 81 percent from a year ago, mainly hurt by a fall in Alstom's contribution to the bottom line and due to the absence of a non-recurring financial gain of 41 million euros recorded last year.
Austrian gas and oil company OMV AG said it plans to raise up to 900 million euros in fresh capital via a rights issue.
European stocks eased slightly on Monday amid fears that Strauss-Kahn's troubles might derail plan for a second Greek rescue. The Euro Stoxx 50 index of eurozone blue chippers declined half a percent and the Stoxx Europe 50 index, which includes some major U.K. companies, closed little changed, while the German DAX slipped 0.2 percent and the French CAC 40 fell 0.7 percent. Markets in London and Zurich were virtually unchanged from the previous session.
On Wall Street, stocks drifted lower on Monday on economic concerns after a report from the New York Federal Reserve showed a much bigger-than-expected slowdown in the pace of regional manufacturing growth in the month of May. The Nasdaq fell 1.6 percent, the Dow ended down 0.4 percent and the S&P 500 shed 0.6 percent.
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May 08, 2026 15:50 ET Manufacturing and services sector survey results and labor market data from main economies were the highlight on the economics news front this week. Factory orders and jobs report dominated the news flow in the U.S. Similarly, industrial production data from German garnered attention in Europe. In Asia, purchasing managers’ survey results from China and the central bank decision from Australia were in focus.