Talks on Greek bailout drag indexes lower

Eurostoxx 50: 2,881.31 (-13.29) Frankfurt DAX: 7,387.54 (-15.77) Paris CAC: 3,989.82 (-29.03)MOST EUROPEAN stocks fell yesterday, dragging the Stoxx Europe 600 Index lower for a third day, as officials met in Brussels to discuss increasing Greece's bailout.

The benchmark Stoxx 600 slid 0.1 per cent to 280.14 in London as two stocks fell for each that rose. The gauge has retreated for two straight weeks as a sell-off in commodity producers and renewed sovereign-debt concern in the euro area outweighed company profits that topped analysts’ estimates.

Analysts are also cutting European earnings forecasts by the most in almost two years just as equities in the region trail US shares by the widest margin since the bull market began, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

“There’s nothing close to a resolution” for Europe’s government debt crisis, Norval Loftus, the chief investment officer at Allegra Investment Management, said yesterday. “There’s a lot of risk in the system. It is a very important time to maintain a slightly risk-averse outlook.”

National benchmark indexes fell in 13 of the 18 western European markets yesterday. Germany’s DAX declined 0.3 per cent and France’s CAC 40 lost 0.8 per cent.

Greece’s ASE index slid 1.9 per cent to the lowest level since November 1997.

Unione di Banca Italiane, Italy’s fourth-biggest bank, retreated 2.5 per cent as net income missed estimates.

National Bank of Greece, Greece’s biggest lender, fell 2.7 per cent to €4.68.

UBI declined 2 per cent to €5.65 after saying first-quarter net income rose 70 per cent to €64.6 million, missing the €67 million-euro average estimate of 12 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg.

Securitas slid 4.6 per cent to 64 kronor. The company offered to acquire Niscayah through a share swap that values the Stockholm-based installer of security systems at about 5.8 billion kronor. Niscayah, which was spun off from Securitas in 2006,jumped 29 per cent to 15.80 kronor.

Deutsche Boerse soared 4.1 per cent to €56.56 after Nasdaq OMX Group and IntercontinentalExchange withdrew their bid for NYSE Euronext, removing an obstacle to the Frankfurt-based bourse’s takeover of the owner of the New York Stock Exchange. – (Bloomberg)