By Sarah Turner
European shares hovered around 18-month highs on Friday, as a
retreat in earnings optimism and a second day of disruption for air
travel offset gains for SKF and auto makers.
The Stoxx Europe 600 index traded flat at 272.06 after gaining
for the last two sessions.
Earnings from companies such as Intel helped shares to gain
early in the week but Google and AMD shares slipped in after-hours
trading late Thursday after reporting results.
European technology shares were weak on Friday, with ASM
International shares down 1.5%.
Shares of Nokia (NOK), which is due to report results next week,
lost 0.7%. Ericsson (ERICY) shares edged down 0.3%, pulling back
from early small gains made after Sony Ericsson Mobile
Communications said it swung to a first-quarter profit.
Airlines were struggling, with SAS down 2.4%, Deutsche Lufthansa
shares down 2% and Air France-KLM shares down 1.8% as a volcanic
ash cloud moving over Europe from Iceland continued to halt
traffic.
The U.K. FTSE 100 index lost 0.1% to 5,821.12, the German DAX
index traded flat at 6,294.12 and the French CAC-40 index traded up
0.2% at 4,074.52.
Losses from technology stocks also pressured shares in Asian
trading, while U.S. stock futures were pointing to mild losses on
Wall Street, with Dow Jones Industrial Average futures down 11
points.
The euro (CUR_EURUSD) declined 0.2% to $1.3548 against the
dollar, with Greece's fiscal deficit problems still a concern,
while sterling (CUR_GBPUSD) lost 0.2% to $1.5449 after an opinion
poll gave Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg victory in last
night's televised debate.
Helping support the French index, supermarket giant Carrefour
climbed 3.2% after it posted a 5.5% increase in first-quarter
revenue to 23.96 billion euros and said that it will buy back up to
6% of its shares.
Latin American growth of 9.6% and Asian growth of 1.6% helped
offset a 0.6% downturn in France and a 2.4% drop from Europe
ex-France, the firm said.
"Carrefour's first quarter was encouraging, with end demand
beginning to stabilize across G4 markets," said James Grzinic, an
analyst at Jefferies.
Shares of Swedish industrial group SKF jumped 8.1%.
It brought the announcement of its "well ahead of market
estimates" first-quarter results forward after pretax profit jumped
to 1.5 billion Swedish kroner, from 531 kroner last year, as sales
at its automotive business improved.
Growth in European new-car registrations picked up pace in
March, driven by strong gains in Spain, the United Kingdom, Italy
and France, according to ACEA data.
Daimler (DAI) shares were up 1.1% and BMW shares rose 1.3%.
-Sarah Turner; 415-439-6400; AskNewswires@dowjones.com