01:04 PM EDT, 10/31/2025 (MT Newswires) -- European stock markets closed lower in Friday trading as the FTSE 100 in London was down 0.44%, Germany's DAX slid 0.68%, France's CAC 40 lost 0.44%, The Stoxx Europe 600 fell 0.51% and the Swiss Market Index dropped 0.61%.

Annual inflation in the eurozone eased to 2.1% in October from 2.2% in September, a Eurostat flash estimate showed.

In Germany, Europe's largest economy, more companies are reporting that it is "increasingly challenging" to project future development amid global tensions and policy ambiguity, the Ifo Institute said. A recent Ifo business survey found that 77.8% of companies reported it "difficult or fairly difficult" to forecast their business development in October, the second-highest level posted since the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.

And in corporate news, Novo Nordisk Chief Executive Maziar Mike Doustdar said that employees affected by layoffs "in the vast majority of our geographies" have been notified that they will lose their jobs. He said Novo Nordisk was "undergoing a company-wide transformation" that has eliminated "thousands of roles."

Shares of the Danish pharmaceutical giant fell more than 2% in Copenhagen.

Telefonica said its Telefonica Hispanoamerica unit has transferred 100% of the share capital of Otecel to Millicom Spain for $380 million, reducing Telefonica Group's net financial debt by about 273 million euros ($315.6 million).

Telefonica is planning to cut its dividend as part of a strategy plan due next week in a move to align with its European telecom peers, Bloomberg reported, citing sources familiar with the matter. It declined to comment when contacted by MT Newswires.

Shares of the Spanish telecom operator slipped 1.8% in Madrid.

Stellantis has set up a dedicated "war room" to manage the impact of semiconductor supply shortages linked with Nexperia. "We are monitoring day-by-day the chip situation from Nexperia," Stellantis CEO Antonio Filosa said Thursday during an earnings call, according to a FactSet transcript.

Shares of the automaker dropped 0.9% in Paris.

Eos Energy Enterprises said it received a 228 megawatt-hour order from UK-based energy developer Frontier Power to deploy its Eos Z3 energy storage systems across Frontier's storage and grid-reliability projects. Financial terms of the order were not disclosed.