European stock indexes opened sharply lower, with airline and bank stocks falling.

Against the backdrop of the Middle East conflict shaking the market, European blue-chip stock indices opened significantly lower. Airlines, banks, and consumer-sensitive stocks saw large declines. Spain and Italy, where bank stocks have a higher weighting, saw the biggest drops in their stock indices, with Spain's IBEX 35 index falling 3% in Madrid and Italy's FTSE MIB index falling 2.4%. Santander Bank in Spain dropped 4.15% and International Consolidated Airlines Group fell 7.3%. France's CAC 40 index dropped 2% with luxury goods leader LVMH group falling 4%. Bank and industrial stocks dragged Germany's DAX index down by 2.4%. The Netherlands AEX index fell 1.2% with ASML dropping 3.4%. However, energy and defense stocks saw significant gains. The UK's FTSE 100 index fell 0.9%, but BAE Systems rose 7.6% and oil giant Shell jumped 5%.