Allied Irish Banks advances after reporting earnings; Fresnillo also up
By Sarah Turner, MarketWatch
LONDON (MarketWatch) -- European shares edged lower on Tuesday, after gaining strongly at the start of the March, although earnings helped limit downside.
The Stoxx Europe 600 index (ST:SXXP 248.93, +0.24, +0.10%) traded down 0.2% at 248.13. It closed with a 1.2% gain on Monday for the second straight advance.
Miners were strong for a second day, with Fresnillo (UK:FRES 795.50, +12.50, +1.60%) shares were up another 1.4% on Tuesday after the silver extractor said that its 2009 net profit more than doubled to $322 million, with silver production up 9% and gold production up 9%.
UCB (BE:UCB 32.11, -0.46, -1.40%) , up 1%, reported that for 2009, net income jumped to 513 million euros, from 42 million euros recorded a year ago.
In the banking sector Allied Irish Banks (UK:ALBK 1.04, +0.04, +3.51%) shares were up 4.2% after the lender's adjusted loss-per-share was better than expectations.
Other Irish-listed financials gaining ground included Bank of Ireland (UK:BKIR 0.10, +0.03, +3.37%) , up 2.4%, and Irish Life and Permanent Group (IE:ILB 3.93, +0.03, +0.72%) , up 3.7%, helping the Irish Iseq 20 index advance 0.5% to 464.47.
Of the main regional markets, the U.K. FTSE 100 index (UK:UKX 5,429, +22.98, +0.43%) rose 0.2% to 5,414.39, the German DAX index (DX:DAX 5,735, +21.91, +0.38%) traded flat at 5,715.10 and the French CAC-40 index (FR:PX1 3,781, +11.81, +0.31%) also traded flat at 3,769.37.
Asia shares were mostly higher while U.S. stock futures were pointing to a bit of consolidation on Wall Street.
The dollar rose against the euro and sterling, with the common currency down 0.4% at $1.3510 and the pound down 0.6% at $1.4904.
The pound dropped sharply on concerns over a possible hung parliament that would limit debt reduction efforts as well as worries that U.K. insurance group Prudential will have to sell sterling and buy dollars to complete the purchase of the Asian assets of American International Group.
Prudential (UK:PRU 499.10, -31.20, -5.89%) (PUK 16.13, -2.37, -12.81%) shares fell sharply on Monday and were down another 3.4% on Tuesday.
Deutsche Telekom (DE:DTE 9.47, -0.08, -0.88%) (DT 12.97, +0.09, +0.70%) lost 1% after it was cut to equal-weight from overweight by Barclays Capital.
The broker said the committed 70 cents per share dividend, given that rivals trade on yields between 7% and 8%, implies a trading range between 9.53 euros and 10.78 euros.
