European Shares Plummet

A sell-off in heavyweight basic resources stocks prompted a third day of losses for European shares on Friday, putting them on track for their worst week this year.

Volatility jumped and the pan-European STOXX 600 fell 1.2%, taking weekly losses to 2.8%, its worst since early November 2016, Reuters reported.

Eurozone stocks and blue-chips also dropped 0.7%, while the miner-heavy FTSE underperformed and was down 0.8%.

The losses have been triggered by rising tensions between the United States and North Korea. “Investors have been anticipating that we are due a correction of some sort,” said Paul Harper, European equity strategist at DNB. “To some extent they have been expecting something and have just been looking for the catalyst.

But if investors are positioned for this already, you are going to need something more to give it significant legs as some might be tempted to buy the dip,” he added.