Europe midday: Shares slide as Trump tells Iran to 'get serious' about talks

26th Mar 2026 10:50

(Sharecast News) - European shares were sharply lower on Thursday over uncertainty around Iran war ceasefire talks, with US President Donald Trump warning Tehran to "get serious soon" about negotiations or "it won't be pretty", sending oil prices higher.

The pan-regional Stoxx 600 index was down 1.14% to 580 at 1207 GMT with all major bourses lower.

US President Donald Trump insisted Iran was still interested in a peace deal after Tehran rejected his as-yet-unseen 15-point plan as "extremely unreasonable".

"The Iranian negotiators are very different and "strange." They are "begging" us to make a deal, which they should be doing since they have been militarily obliterated, with zero chance of a comeback, and yet they publicly state that they are only 'looking at our proposal'. WRONG!!!They better get serious soon, before it is too late, because once that happens, there is NO TURNING BACK, and it won't be pretty!," he posted on social media.

Brent crude rose 5% to $107 a barrel on the news.

"Interestingly, equity investors bought into the US 15-point peace plan and hardly reacted to Iran's rejection said Ipek Ozkardeskaya, senior analyst at Swissquote Bank.

"Donald Trump insists that peace negotiations are ongoing, describing developments in the Middle East as "big", but he is no longer controlling the narrative."

"One of Iran's senior military figures mocked the US, saying: 'Has the level of your inner struggle reached the stage of you negotiating with yourself?' This reflects where we stand in negotiations."

In economic news, German consumer sentiment is set to worsen next month due to the war in Iran, with rising energy prices fuelling inflationary fears among households, according to a survey published on Thursday.

The consumer sentiment index, published by the GfK market research institute and the Nuremberg Institute for Market Decisions, fell 3.2 points to -28.0 for April.

On the equities front, shares in Boliden slumped after the Swedish miner on Wednesday said it expected a hit first quarter profits after production was impacted at its Garpenberg mine due to abnormally high seismic activity earlier this month.

Edenred also plunged as the Italian competition regulator said it had launched an investigation into the company and its Italian unit, citing possible abuse of its dominant position in the country's employee meal voucher market.

Reporting by Frank Prenesti for Sharecast.com