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European shares opened little changed after US President Donald Trump imposed 10 per cent tariffs on an additional $200 billion worth of Chinese imports, and warned of duties on more products if China took retaliatory action.
At 0720 GMT, the pan-European STOXX 600 was down a meagre 0.02 per cent. Germany's DAX, home to large exporters and carmakers which are seen likely to suffer badly from an all out global trade war, was actually up 0.02 per cent. Other bourses in Europe such as Paris also made their way to positive territory, with the CAC 40 up 0.1 per cent.
Thomas Costerg, senior US economist at Pictet, said ahead of the US trade announcement that investors might well be prepared for it and take the view that the Trump administration had shown some restraint as it could have slapped even higher tariffs.
“Ten per cent could actually come as a relief”, he said, adding that such a figure would be “bad but manageable”.
Zalando , Europe's biggest pure online fashion retailer, was the worst performer, down close to 20 per cent at €33.7 after blaming a long, hot summer for cutting its 2018 outlook.
Top gainer was Swiss chemical group Clariant , up 6.5 per cent, after it announced it would merge its high-performance materials business with that of new anchor shareholder Saudi Basic Industries Corporation, to focus on higher-value speciality chemicals.
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