German stocks were little changed with a negative bias on Tuesday after China's top financial regulator said that he is concerned about risks arising from bubbles in financial markets and huge inflow of foreign capital as economies are still facing headwinds from the pandemic.
Bubbles in U.S. and European markets could burst because their rallies are heading in the opposite direction of their underlying economies and would have to face corrections "sooner or later," Guo Shuqing, Chairman of the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission (CBIRC) and Party secretary of the central bank said.
Guo's comments stocked concerns about further tightening in the world's second-biggest economy.
Meanwhile, German retail sales decreased for a second straight month and at a faster than expected pace in January, preliminary figures from Destatis showed.
Retail sales fell 4.5 percent month-on-month, which was worse than the 0.3 percent decline economists had expected. In December, sales decreased 9.1 percent.
Sales dropped 8.7 percent year-on-year, while economists had forecast a 1.3 percent gain. In December, sales grew 2.8 percent. The latest annual decline was the first since April last year, when sales fell 5.6 percent.
These results can be explained by the second Covid-19 lockdown, which led to a partial retail closure starting on December 16, 2020, Destatis said.
The benchmark DAX was marginally lower at 14,006 after rallying 1.6 percent the previous day.
Meal-kit delivery company HelloFresh slumped 4.3 percent despite reporting quarterly sales above market expectations.
TeamViewer AG, a provider of secure remote connectivity solutions and workplace digitalization technology, rose nearly 2 percent.
The company announced its acquisition of Upskill, the U.S.-based pioneer in augmented reality software for frontline workers for an undisclosed amount.
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