6:30 AM Europe was lower on Monday on weakness in financial and tech stocks.
European markets were lower on Monday. In early trade, Frankfurt Xetra Dax shed 0.7 % to 6,862.36, the CAC 40 in Paris lost 0.7 % to 5,651.19 and London FTSE 100 slipped 0.3 % to 6,364.1.

Advancers

Infineon, German chipmaker, gained 1.7%. Infineon was best performing stock last week after announcing contract wins with Nokia and MasterCard. Share acquisition moves in the telecoms sector provided the market some succour. Spanish Telefonica said it had held talks with Italian Pirelli and was offered a small stake in Olimpia, which controls Telecom Italia. Telecom Italia shares gained 1.8 %, while Pirelli added 3.7% and Telefonica fell 0.6%. UK tour operator MyTravel Group bucked the lower travel sector trend, rising 26.4% after MyTravel and KarstadtQuelle-owned Thomas Cook agreed to merge to form an international leisure travel company. Vodafone Group rose 1.7% after the company agreed to buy a stake in India''''s Hutchison Essar for $11.1 billion.

Decliners

ASML Holding, maker of equipment for manufacturing memory chips, fell 2%, while Franco-Italian chipmaker STMicroelectronics shed 1%. Industrial groups took a hit after recent strong sessions. MAN, the German truckmaker, fell 2.1 % after questions were raised about its future following its failure to acquire Swedish Scania. Airline Air France-KLM and cruise ship operator Carnival Corp each trading down more than 1.2%.

Oil

U.S. crude oil for March delivery fell 82 cents in electronic trading. The contract was down 74 cents at $59.15 a barrel, while London Brent crude was off 67 cents at $58.34 a barrel in early trade in London.