After last week's positive results, the European indices are starting the new trading week in negative territory. This could have different reasons.

After the strong gains of the previous week, profit-taking is certainly a key reason why the indices were unable to carry their momentum into the new trading week. In addition, the purchasing managers' indices from several EU countries published today do not seem to have convinced investors. While the data from Germany was largely in line with expectations or slightly better, the important services sector in France and Italy, for example, failed to fulfil expectations and fell well short of them. With a value of 45.2, an increase of 0.8 points was recorded in France. However, analysts had expected an increase of 1.7 points to 46.1. In Italy, on the other hand, where a fall of 1.4 points had already been expected, the PMI for services fell by 2.2 points to 47.7.

Only the Spanish PMI for services was convincing, climbing 0.6 points from 50.5 to 52.1 despite an expected decline of 1.2 points. Overall, the services sector in the euro area is below the 50-point mark, which is regarded as the threshold for growth. This less than positive development appears to be leading to a certain reluctance on the part of investors to invest in European equities.

The leading German DAX index is currently down by around 0.30% after starting the trading day with a slight gain. The situation is similar for the French CAC40, which is currently down by around 0.50%. Only the FTSE 100 is currently down somewhat more moderately at around 0.10%.