Enlarge imageBy Brian Gorman
LONDON (Reuters) - European shares fell from the outset on Tuesday, after losses in Asia overnight and with banking stocks giving up some of the previous session's gains, and commodity shares tracking weaker crude and metals prices.
At 9:27 a.m., the FTSEurofirst 300 index of top European shares was down 0.8 percent at 1,015.81 points. Banks, major gainers on Monday, slipped back. BNP Paribas, Banco Santander, HSBC, Societe Generale and UBS fell between 1.1 and 2.5 percent.
But Britain's Lloyds Banking Group Plc was up 1.7 percent after pricing its record 13.5 billion pound rights issue at 37p per share, a smaller than expected discount, as it battles to escape a costly state-backed insurance scheme for bad debts.
Advertisement starts
Advertisement ends
Energy companies fell as crude prices slipped towards $77 a barrel. Total, BP, and Royal Dutch Shell fell between 0.8 and 1.7 percent.
Miners fell as metals prices slipped back. Copper was lower, having touched its highest in 14 months on Monday.
Antofagasta, Rio Tinto, Vedanta and Xstrata fell between 1.1 and 1.8 percent.
Traders cited talk that state owned Chinalco is poised to sell its stake in Rio. Rio Tinto declined to comment on the speculation and Chinalco was unavailable for comment.
On Monday, the European index rose 2.1 percent to close at 1,023.49 points, the biggest one-day percentage gain since Oct 14.
"China is down after a strong run," said Bernard McAlinden, investment strategist at NCB Stockbrokers in Dublin. "But we're still in a cyclical bull market."
"I don't see any negatives out there. The economic data is good," he added, referring to Monday's U.S. home sales and growth in the euro zone's services sector.
Japan's Nikkei fell 1 percent to hit its lowest close in four months as banking shares were sold on persistent worries that more financial firms would tap the market for equity financing and as a stronger yen hurt shares of exporters.
China's Shanghai Composite fell 3.5 percent.
Across Europe, the FTSE 100, Germany's DAX and France's CAC-40 were between 0.6 and 0.8 percent lower.
UPGRADE BOOSTS CARREFOUR
Among individual stocks, French retailer Carrefour rose 3.1 percent after JP Morgan upgraded its rating to "overweight" from "neutral."
Hedge fund manager Man Group fell 3.2 percent after Credit Suisse downgraded it to "neutral" from "outperform."
The European benchmark is still up more than 57 percent from its lifetime low of March 9, as investors have seen several major economies emerge from recession.
A build up of inventories helped German gross domestic product (GDP) grow 0.7 percent in the third quarter of 2009, despite a drag from private consumption and foreign trade, official data showed on Tuesday.
Europe's largest economy exited its sharpest recession since World War Two in the second quarter, growing by 0.4 percent. Prior to that, GDP had contracted for four quarters in a row.
Later, investors' attention will turn again to the United States, where due economic data includes a revised estimate for third-quarter GDP. This likely to show that the economy grew at an annualised rate of 2.9 percent, down from the previously reported 3.5 percent. House prices data is also due.
(Editing by David Holmes)
