* Risk appetite hit by airport blasts
* At least one dead, several injured
* Gold up more than 1 pct
By Jamie McGeever
LONDON, March 22 (Reuters) - European stocks fell on Tuesday
and safe-haven assets, gold and government bonds rose in price
after two explosions at Brussels airport killed at least one
person and left several others injured.
Travel sector stocks including airlines and hotels fell the
most, pulling the broader indices down from multi-week highs as
reports on the scale of the carnage in the Belgian capital
unfolded.
The cause of the blasts was unknown, but they occurred four
days after the arrest in Brussels of a suspected participant in
November militant attacks in Paris that killed 130 people.
Belgian police had been on alert for any reprisal action.
"Anything like the events we're seeing in Brussels this
morning is going to weigh on risk sentiment and risk appetite,"
said Michael Hewson, chief market strategist at CMC Markets in
London.
"Coming up to the Easter holiday, people are going to be
very reluctant to put more money into these (stock) markets. If
anything, they will be more likely to take money out," he said.
In early European trade the FTSEuroFirst 300 index of
leading shares was down 1 percent at 1,326 points .FTEU3 .
Germany's DAX was down 1.2 percent and Belgian stocks were down
0.8 percent .BEL20 .
The STOXX Europe 600 Travel & Leisure index .SXTP was the
top sectoral faller, down 2.2 percent. Shares in major European
airlines were down as much as 4 percent EZJ.L AIRF.PA
LHAG.DE , and hotel company Accor ACCP.PA fell 4.1 percent.
Gold rose more than 1 percent to $1,257 an ounce XAU= , and
the yield on benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasury and German
government bonds both fell around 4 basis points to 1.88 percent
US10YT=RR and 0.19 percent EU10YT=RR .
Earlier in Asia, stocks edged lower as hawkish comments from
U.S. Federal Reserve officials indicated that interest rate
hikes could be on the way sooner rather than later.
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Shanghai CSI 300 and global effects interactive https://t.co/YqIYLIbInP
Chinese A-shares vs developed and emerging stocks http://link.reuters.com/rac25w
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