European stocks close lower; medtech firms slide on U.S. medical device imports probe

Europe-listed stocks moved lower on Thursday, as concern over U.S. trade policy reared its head once again.

The pan-European Stoxx 600 provisionally ended the session down 0.71%, with all major regional bourses in negative territory.

Retail was a bright spot, with the Stoxx Europe 600 Retail index advancing 0.42%. Fashion retail giant H&M‘s shares surged 9.8% to top the Stoxx 600, after the company’s third-quarter earnings beat expectations.

Meanwhile, shares of medical technology firms sold off after the Trump administration opened a national security probe into imports of medical devices, robotics and industrial machinery — raising concerns that those goods could be the next target of the White House’s tariffs regime.

Siemens Healthineers shed 3.5%, while Philips was 3% lower. London-based Convatec, which makes various medical devices, dropped 5.6%.

In other news, shares of British investment firm Petershill Partners surged more than 33% after the company announced plans to delist from the London Stock Exchange.

Shares of software giant SAP — one of Europe’s most valuable companies — also moved lower on Thursday, closing 1.2% lower after the European Commission launched an antitrust probe into its practices.

“SAP believes that its policies and actions are fully in line with competition rules. However, we take the issues raised seriously and we are working closely with the EU Commission to resolve them,” SAP said in a statement on Thursday.

“We do not anticipate the engagement with the European Commission to result in material impacts on our financial performance.”

Meanwhile, a consortium of nine European banks, including UniCredit, ING, and Danske Bank, unveiled plans to launch a new euro-denominated stablecoin next year.  

In the U.S., the Labor Department’s latest weekly jobs data showed jobless claims fell to 218,000 for the week ended Sept. 20, down 14,000 from the previous week. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said on Tuesday that the cooling labor market was overriding concerns about sticky inflation, prompting the central bank’s first interest rate cut of the year.

Back in Europe, investors were also monitoring consumer confidence figures.

In their report on consumer confidence in Germany, published Thursday morning, GfK and the Nuremberg Institute for Market Decisions (NIM) said the downward trend in the consumer climate had halted due to improved income expectations.

However, Rolf Bürkl, head of consumer climate at NIM, said that market watchers should approach the data with caution.

“Whether this marks the beginning of a sustained turnaround is more than uncertain. The consumer climate remains at an extremely low level,” he explained in the report. “The geopolitical situation, concerns about jobs, and renewed fears of inflation are likely hinder a thorough recovery at the moment.”