London - European travel stocks fell sharply in early trading on Friday after a deadly attack in tourist hotspot Barcelona, with investors also increasingly concerned the Trump administration was fraying at the seams. As a global sell-off spread, the pan-European STOXX 600 was down 0.9 percent by 0725 GMT, with blue-chips down 1 percent, following falls in Asian and U.S. stocks overnight. All European sectors were in the red. Travel and leisure stocks led losses, down 1.4 percent, with airlines the worst-performing as investors dropped stocks exposed to tourist flows. Easyjet, Ryanair, British Airways owner IAG and Lufthansa were down 1.9 to 2.7 percent. Spanish airport company AENA fell 2 percent after Thursday's attack, in which a suspected Islamist militant drove a van into crowds in central Barcelona, killing 13 people. Spanish stocks underperformed peers, falling 1.4 percent, with Melia Hotels among top weights. "As we've seen over the last couple of years in Europe, these kinds of atrocities affect tourism and will hit airline earnings," said Neil Wilson, analyst at ETX Capital. The risk-off moves also hit banks, down 1 percent, with Deutsche Bank and BNP Paribas among the worst performers. Though company news was thin on the ground, earnings drove some moves. Dutch storage firm Vopak fell 4.5 percent after it said profit would be 5 to 10 percent lower this year than last due to lower occupancy rates. Irish construction firm Kingspan Group jumped 7 percent, the top gainer after it reported its trading profit grew 6 percent in the first half and said the Brexit vote had not had a measurable impact on UK business. Fiat Chrysler fell 1.3 percent after Guangzhou Automobile denied it was planning to take over the Italian carmaker. Speculation over a potential Chinese buyer had sent its shares soaring this week. Some stocks with the biggest results-driven losses in the previous session recovered ground: Vestas Wind and Wienerberger gained 2.8 and 3.8 percent. Meanwhile Straumann, the top gainer on Thursday after a profit beat, fell back 3.5 percent as investors moderated their enthusiasm. The European earnings season is drawing to a close, with 86 percent of second-quarter company reports through. Some 60 percent of these have beaten or met expectations and earnings estimates were trending up, though they were still negative overall after being revised down sharply since the start of earnings season due to concerns about a stronger euro. "In contrast to the pattern of the last several years in which earnings have routinely disappointed lofty analyst expectations, this year analysts have been overly bearish and earnings have surprised to the upside," said Jon Ingram, portfolio manager at JP Morgan Asset Management.
