"We should be braced for a period of worsening economic news," ING's Chief International Economist James Knightley said.
Losses in the main index were capped by a 2.1 per cent surge in automakers after Germany's Daimler AG forecast a rise in operating profit at its Mercedes-Benz cars and vans division in 2020 as sales rebound. Publicis Groupe SA, the world's third-biggest advertising company, surged 8 per cent after it beat market expectations for quarterly underlying sales.