Europe open: Shares lower as investors mull ECB rate call; global IT outage

(Sharecast News) - European stocks opened lower on Friday as a major technical outage involving Microsoft hit businesses around the world. The pan-regional Stoxx 600 index was down 0.64% to 510 in early deals.

Traders were also digesting the European Central Bank's decision on Thursday to hold interest rates steady for now, after a cut last month. ECB officials also said they expected headline inflation to remain above their target rate until next year.

Fears about a deepening trade war between the US and China was also hitting sentiment.

"A major IT outage, which began in Australia and sent ripples round the world, affecting Windows on PCs across a raft of sectors is also unsettling. It appears to be connected to Crowdstrike security software, but a glitch causing repercussions of this scale is worrying given how much disruption it has sparked," said Hargreaves Lansdown analyst Susannah Streeter.

Reporting by Frank Prenesti for Sharecast.com