Europe open: Shares fall, oil rises as Hormuz blockade spooks investors

(Sharecast News) - European markets opened lower and oil prices pushed beyond $100 a barrel as the continuing blockade of the Strait of Hormuz overshadowed the extension of the Iran war ceasefire.

Despite buoyant US markets overnight, the pan-European Stoxx 600 index was down 0.4% to 611 at 0804 BST. Germany's DAX fell 0.47%, Britain's FTSE 100 was 0.58% lower, France's CAC 40 bucked the trend with a 0.3% gain and Italy's MIB declined by 0.31%.

Brent crude was up 1.53% to $103 a barrel as the vital Strait of Hormuz remained blockaded. On Wednesday Iranian forces seized two ships in the waterway as the US and Iran both imposed separate blockades.

Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, the speaker of the Iranian parliament and the country's lead negotiator, said late on Wednesday that reopening the strait of Hormuz would be "impossible" while the US and Israel committed "flagrant" breaches of the ceasefire, including the US naval blockade.

Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said their naval forces had stopped two ships attempting to cross the strait and brought them to shore.

"If you handed a market chart to an alien - any of the big ones, including US, European or tech-heavy Asian indices - they would barely guess that the world is being shaken by intense geopolitical tensions that brought transit at one of the planet's most critical chokepoints to a near-halt, that the situation has been going on for nearly two months, threatening a man-made energy shortage across the planet, and that there is no light at the end of the tunnel," said Swissquote analyst Ipek Ozkardeskaya.

"They wouldn't guess either that world leaders now prefer tweeting threats on social media as a new form of diplomacy."

In equity news, STMicroelectronics share surged as the chipmaker posted better than expected first quarter sales numbers, driven by strong demand.

Nokia shares jumped as the telecoms giant backed full-year guidance and reported rising sales of its network-infrastructure equipment on strong demand from artificial intelligence and data-center customers.

Saab shares were lower despite the Swedish aerospace and defence group reported a larger than expected rise in first-quarter operating profit.

Reporting by Frank Prenesti for Sharecast.com