ROME: European stocks fell for a third day as a decline in energy shares outweighed better-than-expected results from Credit Suisse Group AG and Unilever.
BP Plc’s 1.2 percent drop dragged oil-and-gas stocks to the worst performance of the 19 industry groups on the Stoxx Europe 600 Index. Credit Suisse rose 6.7 percent after quarterly profit beat estimates. Unilever climbed 2.4 percent after the maker of Magnum ice cream reported higher-than-forecast sales growth.
The Stoxx 600 slid 0.3 percent to 399.29 at 11:57 a.m. in London, after earlier rising as much as 0.6 percent. The volume of shares changing hands was 25 percent lower than the 30-day average. Shares rose to within 2 percent of their record in a nine-day rally through Monday.
“We expect good profit growth in Europe, so there shouldn’t really be a massive rally on the back of a strong earnings season,” said Ben Kumar, who helps oversee about $14 billion at Seven Investment Management in London. “This earnings season is confirming people’s positive outlook on Europe and showing that the markets were right to look through Greece to the underlying fundamentals. It’s nothing more than that so far.”
The earnings season is picking up pace in Europe, with more than 200 Stoxx 600 companies scheduled to report through the rest of the month.
