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* Miners, oil stocks reverse this week's gains
* BoE sees slower economic recovery from COVID-19 hit
* Siemens, Adidas earnings prop up German DAX
* UniCredit vows to stay out of M&A wave, shares drop
(Updates to market close)
By Sruthi Shankar
Aug 6 (Reuters) - European equities declined on Thursday as
London stocks were sapped after Glencore scrapped its dividend
and oil stocks slid, while investors kept a close eye on
Washington for progress on U.S. stimulus.
The pan-European STOXX 600 index closed 0.7% lower,
with London's FTSE 100 falling 1.3% and the German DAX
down 0.5%.
Europe's mining index, which rallied earlier this
week, shed 2.5% after Glencore became the first major
mining company to scrap its dividend and said that it would
prioritise cutting debt.
Its shares slumped 8.1%, while energy majors BP,
Royal Dutch Shell and Total fell between 2%
and 3.8% after strong gains on Wednesday.
Wall Street indexes were largely flat, stalling near record
levels as U.S. Democrats and White House officials struggled to
work out a stimulus package for the coronavirus
pandemic-stricken economy.
"Progress has been made but doubts are creeping if a deal
will be reached before another week passes," Edward Moya, a
senior market analyst at Oanda wrote in a note.
London's exporter-heavy FTSE 100 also took a hit from a
stronger pound after the Bank of England (BoE) saw no immediate
case to cut interest rates below zero even as it said the
economy would take longer to recover from its COVID slump than
it previously forecast.
"This is another positive signal at a time of still
considerable uncertainty," said Chris Bailey, European
strategist at Raymond James. "Conditions are still extremely
difficult, and subject to negative revision, but today they have
seen a chink of light."
German stocks posted relatively small losses as engineering
group Siemens rose 1.6% after forecasting a modest
improvement in orders and revenue in the months ahead.
Adidas gained 1.9% as it expects a rebound in
profits in the third quarter.
Among the fallers, French insurer AXA slid 3.5%
after it dropped its 2020 earnings target and said it would not
make additional payouts to shareholders in the fourth quarter.
UniCredit was down 3.9% as it vowed to stay out of
a possible merger wave in Italy after reporting higher than
forecast quarterly results.
Lufthansa slipped 1.2% after saying it did not
expect air travel demand to return to pre-crisis levels before
2024.
Of the 65% of the STOXX 600 companies that have reported
results so far, nearly 60% have exceeded dramatically lowered
estimates, Refinitiv Eikon data shows.
(Reporting by Sruthi Shankar in Bengaluru;
Editing by Arun Koyyur and Barbara Lewis)
