Europe's main stock markets fell on Friday as investors looked ahead to key economic growth figures from the United States, after dissecting news of a major takeover, company earnings and eurozone data.
London's FTSE 100 index of leading shares fell 0.49 percent to 5,287.29 points in morning trade. Frankfurt's DAX 30 dropped 0.65 percent to 6,095.67 points and in Paris the CAC 40 index shed 0.64 percent to 3,629.08 points.
The Stoxx 50 index of top eurozone shares declined 0.72 percent at 2,733.01 points.
"It's all about the GDP (gross domestic product) numbers from the US today," said Simon Denham, head of trading firm Capital Spreads.
"The last few weeks have seen a return of investor confidence and economic data on the whole has surprised to the upside, along with corporate earnings being better than I can remember for a while.
"But for now the market is just having a respite, waiting for confirmation that things really are looking up, so until the GDP data today we can expect markets to drift sideways," said Denham.
Analysts expect US growth to have slowed to 2.5 percent in the second quarter from 2.7 percent in the first three months of the year.
Ahead of the data, it was announced that a consortium led by Hong Kong tycoon Li Ka-shing had made a 9.0-billion-dollar "irrevocable" offer to buy the British power distribution network of French electricity giant EDF.
The deal for the largest electricity supplier in Britain would be the biggest by a Hong Kong entity in Britain.
EDF Energy is owned by EDF -- Europe's biggest electricity producer. EDF's share price rose 1.32 percent to 32.90 euros in Paris where it also announced a slide in net profits.
In London, British Airways rose 2.59 percent to 221.60 pence after saying it expected to break even in its current year to March 2011 after losses widened in its first quarter.
In Asian trade, Tokyo's Nikkei index dropped 1.64 percent owing to a stronger yen and worse-than-expected data on Japanese unemployment and factory output, brokers said.
Meanwhile in the eurozone, inflation is expected to rise sharply to 1.7 percent in July, the EU forecast on Friday, although analysts saw no cause for alarm citing still-record unemployment.
Across the Atlantic, US stock markets ebbed on Thursday, reversing early gains garnered from news of an unexpected fall in US jobless claims and solid company earnings as fears of a faltering recovery resurfaced.
The Dow closed down 0.29 percent at 10,467.16 points.
Copyright 2010  AFP Global Edition
