MW: European shares lower for fourth straight session
Philips Electronics swings to profit, Ericsson shares lower
By Sarah Turner, MarketWatch
LONDON (MarketWatch) -- European shares declined on Monday, down for the fourth straight session, with earnings from Ericsson and Philips Electronics drawing mixed reactions from investors.
The pan-European Dow Jones Stoxx 600 index (ST:SXXP 250.07, +0.16, +0.06%) declined 0.6% to 248.33.
Last week, the index fell 2.6% as investors worried about possible implications of a regulatory crackdown on the banking sector and tightening of Chinese policy.
"The three-day slide, prompted by fears of Chinese policy tightening, has done significant damage to the technical picture for the S&P index and most of the global benchmarks," said Ian Williams, strategist at Altium Securities.
On Monday, the U.K. FTSE 100 index (UK:UKX 5,315, +12.13, +0.23%) declined 0.4% to 5,284.22, the German DAX index (DX:DAX 5,678, -17.52, -0.31%) lost 0.9% to 5,645.25 and the French CAC-40 index (FR:PX1 3,819, -1.65, -0.04%) fell 0.6% to 3,798.71.
Asian shares were lower while U.S. stock futures were pointing to a bit of a rebound on Wall Street following sharp losses on Friday.
"The focus has shifted to revenues for the latest U.S. reporting season. So far, it is fair to say that revenue has neither excited nor disappointed," said analysts at Davy Stockbrokers.
The profit picture was mixed in Europe as well, at least on Monday.
Ericsson (SE:ERICB 71.90, +1.10, +1.55%) (ERIC 9.83, +0.07, +0.72%) shares fell 2.9% in Stockholm on after the telecom equipment maker said that net income for the three months to Dec. 31 fell to 314 million Swedish kronor from 3.89 billion kronor a year ago, after a hike in restructuring costs. Ericsson profit drops 92%
That fell below the 3.23 billion kronor analysts were expecting, according to data compiled by Dow Jones Newswires.
On the other hand, shares of Philips Electronics (NL:PHIA 21.42, +1.09, +5.34%) (PHG 28.26, -0.79, -2.72%) rose 3.9%.
In contrast to Ericsson, the Dutch consumer electronics firm said that reduced charges helped it swing to a fourth-quarter net attributable profit of 251 million euros. Last year it posted a loss of 1.2 billion euros. Philips swings to profit
Sales totaled 7.26 billion euros, down from 7.6 billion euros at the same point last year, which the company said was largely due to foreign exchange effects.
