European equities closed lower on Oct 22: Germany's DAX fell 282.88 points (-1.10%) to 25,362.16; the UK's FTSE 100 dropped 31.91 points (-0.30%) to 10,720.97; France's CAC 40 slid 110.42 points (-1.39%) to 7,811.26; EUROSTOXX 50 fell 121.57 points (-1.96%) to 6,085.95; Spain's IBEX 35 declined 407.90 points (-2.11%) to 18,915.60; Italy's FTSE MIB lost 1,263.19 points (-2.54%) to 48,380.50.

China stocks weakened at midday: Shanghai Composite -0.89%, Shenzhen Composite -1.78%, ChiNext Index -2.77%. Market turnover exceeded CNY900 billion and more than 3,900 stocks declined. Electric-motor sector led gains, with Huayang Intelligent hitting a 20% limit and multiple peers at limit-up. Construction/engineering machinery stocks bucked the trend, several names on limit-up. Film exhibition names fell, Bona Film among the biggest decliners. Education stocks slipped, with at least one education name hitting the daily down limit. Short-form game, CPO and media sectors were lower; reducers and industrial machine-tool sectors posted modest gains.

Foreign media reported that on Thursday South Korea elevated its cyber alert level for the private sector and launched emergency measures after a critical vulnerability was discovered in the PHP web programming language. The presidential office said the National Security Office convened an emergency meeting on Thursday with intelligence, defense and science officials to assess responses across the public sector, private companies and the military. The Ministry of Science and ICT issued security guidance to about 28,000 firms registered with chief information security officers (CISOs), 5,900 members of the government information‑sharing network, and to critical infrastructure operators, web‑hosting providers and data‑center operators.