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* Miners, banks, travel stocks lead declines
* Easing of UK curbs fails to excite investors
* Cyclical stocks also tumble
(Updates prices)
By Sruthi Shankar and Susan Mathew
July 19 (Reuters) - European shares sank more than 2% on
Monday, and were on track for their worst session in nine months
because of worries that the fast-spreading Delta coronavirus
variant could slow the global economic recovery.
Commodity-linked stocks, banks and travel shares lost more
than 3%, with the oil and travel and leisure indices
hitting February lows.
Extending losses from last week, the pan-European STOXX 600
index was down 2.4%, with all sectors in the red.
The German DAX dropped 2.7%, while Italy's MIB
plunged 3.3%, putting it on course for its steepest
one-day drop since October. UK's FTSE 100 was down 2.3%
as rising coronavirus cases overshadowed optimism about
England's reopening of the economy.
In Britain, cases rose to 48,161 on Sunday. In France, a
minister said the re-imposition of curfew measures cannot be
excluded if infections continue to climb.
"Investors are extremely worried that... another lockdown
could be a month or two round the corner," said Russ Mould,
investment director at AJ Bell. "Covid is spreading fast again
and the airlines, restaurants and leisure companies may not get
the strong summer trading they've long hoped for."
"The big concern for the market is whether we (are) going to
see a slowdown in the global economic recovery, and this could
be the overriding force which results in a bad period for
equities in the weeks ahead," he said.
UK-listed shares of cruise operator Carnival Plc,
airlines easyJet and British Airways-owner IAG
fell between 5.6% and 9%.
Bank of England interest-rate setter Jonathan Haskel said on
Monday monetary stimulus would not be curbed for the foreseeable
future. Eyes will be on the European Central Bank meeting this
week following its recent strategy
update.
Oil majors such as BP, Royal Dutch Shell and
Total fell between 3% and 3.8%%, hit by falling crude
prices after OPEC+ ministers agreed to increase supply from
August.
With government bond yields on the decline, other
economically sensitive sectors such as banks,
automobiles & parts dropped, while declining base metal
prices hit miners.
French media company Vivendi hit a four-month low,
down 1.8% after billionaire investor Bill Ackman decided to buy
up to 10% of Vivendi's Universal Music Group through his main
hedge fund, rather than a special purpose acquisition company.
Italian telecoms group Telecom Italia dropped 4.1%
after it forecast its organic core profit to fall this year.
British video game company Sumo Group soared 40%
after Chinese tech giant Tencent Holdings agreed to
buy the company in a deal valued at 919 million pounds ($1.27
billion).
(Reporting by Sruthi Shankar in Bengaluru; Editing by Arun
Koyyur and Timothy Heritage)
