European stocks closed Monday lower, as investors monitored signs of thawing tensions between the U.S. and North Korea and reacted to renewed political turmoil in Italy.
Italian stocks closed 2.07 percent after initially opening the session higher. This after news of a dramatic setback for the country’s populist parties.
Meanwhile, Germany’s DAX and France’s CAC were trading slightly lower at the close. Market holidays in the U.K. and U.S. made trading slow and illiquid on Monday.
The leader of Italy’s largest political party called for the country’s president to be impeached after choosing to veto a choice for economy minister. Luigi Di Maio of the anti-establishment Five Star Movement said President Sergio Mattarella had prompted an “institutional crisis” by rejecting euroskeptic candidate Paolo Savona.
No major political group has been able to form a majority in Italy since elections in March, leaving the euro zone’s third-largest economy without a government.
The euro initially gained ground on the news but soon fell as traders contemplated a political stalemate and another election.
Looking at individual stocks, shares of Genmab tumbled to the bottom of the European benchmark after the Danish biotech company announced it would stop some of its lung cancer trials. Shares of the company slumped 20 percent on the news.
Singapore summit
President Donald Trump said Sunday that representatives from the U.S. had arrived in North Korea over the weekend, in an effort to prepare for a proposed summit between him and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. Last week, the U.S. president pulled out of the scheduled meeting — due in Singapore next month — citing the isolated regime’s “hostility.”
Asian stocks edged higher on Monday, following news Washington and Pyongyang are still working towards holding a summit. MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares, excluding Japan, rose 0.2 percent.
