Economic Calendar

Monday, December 1, 2008

European shares fall in early trade; banks, miners drop

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LONDON, Dec 1 (Reuters) - European shares opened lower on Monday, after a strong rally last week, with banks and miners falling.

At 0807 GMT the FTSEurofirst 300 index of top European shares was down 0.8 percent at 855.03 points. It gained 13.3 percent last week, but has lost more than 42 percent this year, hurt by a credit crisis and several major economies going into recession.

BNP Paribas (BNPP.PA: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), Barclays (BARC.L: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) and UBS (UBSN.VX: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) were down between 2.7 and 5 percent.

UK consumer credit figures are among the data due later in the session.

"There's a lot of data, but it's not going to be much better," said Bernard McAlinden, investment strategist NCB Stockbrokers.

"We think the market will go higher but it won't be because of anything in the data. It's a question of when the markets can start ignoring the bad economic news and take the view that things will get better. Our view is that the stimulus packages will work."

Across Europe Britain's FTSE 100 .FTSE, Germany's DAX .GDAXI and France's CAC-40 .FCHI were down between 0.4 and 0.7 percent. Japan's Nikkei .N225 closed 1.4 percent lower. (Reporting by Brian Gorman; Editing by Greg Mahlich)




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