European stocks dip as financials wilt on U.S. tax bill disappointment

LONDON (Reuters) – Europe’s financial stocks wilted after a delayed vote on tax reform in the U.S. deflated a rally in the sector, driving regional benchmarks to start December with a dip.

Euro zone stocks () fell 0.6 percent while Britain’s FTSE (), which has suffered from a strong sterling this week, slid 0.1 percent.

Financials were the biggest weight after the U.S. Senate delayed a vote on a tax reform bill that investors anticipate will be beneficial for banks.

Lloyds (L:), Barclays (L:), and BNP Paribas (PA:) led the index down.

Oil and gas stocks stayed buoyant, with Shell (L:), Total (PA:) and BP (L:) leading sector gains as OPEC’s extension of supply cuts continued to boost crude prices.

Healthcare stocks outperformed thanks to a Morgan Stanley (NYSE:) upgrade boosting UCB (BR:) by 3.3 percent while Novo Nordisk (CO:), flagged as one of the strategists’ favorites in the pharma space, gained 2.8 percent.

British pharma company Indivior (L:) also shot up 11.7 percent after its opioid addiction drug got approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

Struggling French telecom company Altice (AS:) – whose shares sank 59 percent in November after disappointing results – rose 4.6 percent after the company said it would sell data center and Swiss telecoms businesses in a bid to reduce its 50 billion euro debt pile.

Meanwhile shares in Dialog Semiconductor (DE:), hammered on Thursday by a press report Apple (O:) would in-source its power chip design, removing a crucial supplier relationship for the German firm, recovered to trade up 4 percent.

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