On Monday, European stocks were mixed as trading volumes are weakened on the eve of the New Year.
Global financial markets were closed on Thursday afternoon, on Christmas Eve, and were closed for holiday the whole Friday.
During the last week of this year, trading volumes are likely to remain reduced as many traders have closed the gap on the eve of the holiday period, reducing liquidity in the market and increasing volatility.
During European morning trade, STOXX EURO 50 eased 0.28%, France's CAC 40 lost 0.46%, while the German DAX 30 fell 0.01%. The British stock market is closed on Monday.
The composite index of the largest companies in the region Stoxx Europe 600 rose during trading by less than 0.1%, to 366.39 points. Since early December, the indicator has lost about 5%, while since the beginning of the year its growth was 7%.
Financial sector of shares have risen mainly because the French lender Societe Generale (PA: SOGN) gained 0.35%, while German Deutsche Bank (DE: DBKGn) and Commerzbank (DE: CBKG) rose 0.41%, and 0.83% respectively.
Among the peripheral lenders, Italian Unicredit (MI: CRDI) and Intesa Sanpaolo (MI: ISP) rose 0.10% and 0.14% respectively, while Spanish BBVA (MC: BBVA) rose 0.21%.
Shares of Banca Monte dei Paschi rose 2.57 % on the announcement of the third-largest bank in Italy for the sale of a portfolio of non-performing loans in the total cost of 1 billion euro ($ 1.1 billion) to the German Deutsche Bank. Shares of Adidas fell 0.51 %, as the company's CFO Robin Stalker said in an interview with the German edition of Boersen-Zeitung that he expects the cost of resources to half a billion euro in 2016 due to the negative impact of exchange rate changes.
Air France shares fell 0.29% after a warning on Saturday about a new strike from 10 to 13 January, if the company administration will not give up the disciplinary procedure against the two pilots who participated in violent protests in October.
In the US, equity markets pointed to a decline in anticipation of the opening. Futures of Dow Jones Industrial Average show a 0.21% decline, futures on the S&P 500 indicates a 0.21% drop, while the Nasdaq 100 futures reported a decrease by 0.13%.