By Sarah Turner, MarketWatch
LONDON (MarketWatch) -- European shares moved back from early highs on Monday, with losses for banks offsetting gains in the mining sector.
The pan-European Dow Jones Stoxx 600 index (ST:SXXP 236.50, -0.96, -0.40%) declined 0.1% to 237.20, marking the fourth day of losses for the index.
Last week, the index lost 3.9% in its worst week since early March, as shares hit three-month lows amid concerns about the debt burdens of Greece, Spain and Portugal.
Banks have been at the forefront of recent losses and moved lower again on Monday, with Credit Suisse (CH:CSGN 43.09, -0.51, -1.17%) (CS 41.46, -0.38, -0.91%) shares down 2% and ING Group (NL:INGA 6.10, -0.17, -2.71%) shares down 1.2%.
Over the weekend at the G-7 meeting of financial heads "E.U. officials declared that they were 'aggressively monitoring' the Greek situation," noted economists at UBS. "There was no hint of a bailout, though it may be a bit early to expect that," they added.
On a regional level, the U.K. FTSE 100 index (UK:UKX 5,056, -4.58, -0.09%) was up just 0.1% at 5,066.71, the German DAX index (DX:DAX 5,445, +10.44, +0.19%) climbed 0.4% to 5,455.07 and the French CAC-40 index (FR:PX1 3,566, +2.72, +0.08%) advanced 0.4% to 3,579.88.
Asian shares ended mixed while U.S. stock futures were slightly higher, with Dow Industrial Average futures up 4 points.
In the currency markets, the euro traded up 0.1% at $1.3695 against the dollar. In the commodity markets, light sweet crude-oil futures advanced 64 cents to $71.82 while gold futures advanced $16.70 to $1,069.50 an ounce in electronic trading.
Miners advanced along with metal futures, with Randgold Resources (UK:RRS 4,448, +259.68, +6.17%) (GOLD 69.68, +2.38, +3.54%) up 6.3%.
The firm said Monday that its fourth-quarter net attributable profit jumped to $32.1 million, from $9.1 million at the same point a year ago, boosted by higher gold production. Given the profit increase, the board increased the annual dividend by 30% to 17 cents a share. Read story on Randgold.
Coal and copper mining firm Xstrata (UK:XTA 955.10, +6.50, +0.68%) rose 1.1%.
Xstrata's second-half profit collapsed 97% as prices on coal, copper and other metals fell, but the Anglo-Swiss miner said it's showing its confidence in the future by restoring dividend payments. Read more on Xstrata.
Meanwhile, Anglo American (UK:AAL 2,287, +16.71, +0.73%) shares rose 2.8%. It said that it will fully subscribe for shares in the $1.6 billion share issue of its unit Anglo Platinum, which also reported a 95% drop in headline earnings for 2009 to 710 million rand ($91.6 million) driven by lower metal prices.
Back with decliners, and shares of business software firm SAP (DE:SAP 32.77, -0.54, -1.61%) (SAP 45.96, -0.29, -0.63%) lost 1.9% after the resignation of the firm's chief executive, Leo Apotheker, over the weekend. Read more on SAP.
BG Group (UK:BG. 1,079, -33.00, -2.97%) shares were down 2.7% after Barclays Capital downgraded the natural gas producer to equalweight from overweight.
"Given the de-risking theme in global markets, investors may choose to focus on the short-term returns offered by higher-yielding plays in the sector," the broker said, noting that BG has outperformed its sector by 10% since December.
