European equities closed sharply lower on Monday as another jump in sovereign bond yields and renewed concerns over AI safety weighed on risk sentiment. The Euro STOXX 50 declined 1.1% to 6,257, while the STOXX Europe 600 slipped 0.5% to 636.
Investor anxiety intensified after Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei called for slowing the development of frontier AI models to reduce the risk that loss of control over advanced agents could lead to harmful outcomes for society. His comments drew public support from rivals OpenAI and xAI, heightening expectations that additional guardrails and regulation could be imposed on AI development.
The prospect of tighter oversight hit shares across the AI infrastructure space, particularly chipmakers and related hardware providers. ASML and Infineon fell 6.3% and 7.5%, respectively, while Schneider Electric dropped 6.8% and Siemens Energy tumbled 8.5%.
Bank stocks also ended sharply lower as further escalation in the Middle East pushed oil and gas prices higher, darkening the inflation outlook for the Eurozone and reinforcing concerns about the interest-rate path. Shares of Santander, BBVA, Intesa Sanpaolo, and Deutsche Bank declined between 1.3% and 2%.
