* FTSEurofirst 300 index finishes 1 percent lower
* Financials, drugmakers among top losers
* Investors await more earnings results this week
By Atul Prakash
LONDON, Oct 13 (Reuters) - European shares ended lower on
Tuesday, pressured by weaker financial and pharmaceutical
stocks, with investors selling equities after disappointing
sales from U.S. economic bellwether Johnson & Johnson <JNJ.N>.
The FTSEurofirst 300 <> index of top European shares
finished 1 percent lower at 995.42 points after trading in a
wide range of 993.02-1,006.16 points.
The index, which slumped 45 percent last year, is up 20
percent in 2009 and has surged 54 percent since hitting a record
low in March this year.
Financials were among the top losers on the index, with
Standard Chartered <STAN.L>, HSBC <HSBA.L>, Barclays <BARC.L>,
Lloyds <LLOY.L>, Royal Bank of Scotland <RBS.L>, Societe
Generale <SOGN.PA> and Credit Agricole <CAGR.PA> falling between
0.8 percent and 3.3 percent.
"You can be thrown in both directions during this time of
the year simply because some of the company results are better
than expected and sometimes results have negative surprises,"
said Luc Van Hecka, chief economist at KBC Securities.
"It could take a couple of weeks before we really see the
underlying trend. So far there have been a few really big
disappointments in company results. I still believe that we have
a serious push from high liquidity," he added.
Johnson & Johnson posted weaker-than-expected quarterly
revenue as sales of prescription drugs and cardiac stents
disappointed. While third-quarter profit topped analyst
forecasts, that was largely because of cost cuts and lower
taxes. []
Other major companies releasing results this week include
JPMorgan Chase <JPM>, Citigroup <C.N>, Goldman Sachs <GS.N>,
Google <GOOG.O>, Nokia <NOK1V.HE> and IBM <IBM>.
Across Europe, Britain's FTSE 100 index <>, Germany's
DAX <> and France's CAC 40 <> fell 1.1-1.2 percent.
RESULTS EYED
Investors remained cautious ahead of more results from
financial institutions.
"The rally in banking stocks in particular seems to have
stalled with some analyst downgrades ahead of crucial earnings
reports from the U.S. giants JPMorgan tomorrow, Goldman Sachs
and Citigroup on Thursday and Bank of America on Friday," Angus
Campbell, head of sales at Capital Spreads, said.
Prominent U.S. banking analyst Meredith Whitney downgraded
her rating on Goldman Sachs Group Inc to "neutral" from "buy,".
Whitney shot to fame by predicting much of the banking sector
meltdown.
Swedbank <SWEDa.ST> was down 3 percent. Sweden's fourth
largest bank by market capitalisation said its 15.1 billion
Swedish crown ($2.2 billion) rights issue was covered nearly
twice over. []
Drugmakers were also under pressure. AstraZeneca <AZN.L>,
GlaxoSmithKline <GSK.L>, Merck <MRCG.DE>, Novartis <NOVN.VX>,
Novo Nordisk <NOVOb.CO>, Roche Holding <ROG.VX>, Sanofi-Aventis
<SASY.PA> and Shire <SHP.L> fell 0.2 to 1.1 percent.
Energy shares also fell in line with broader market trends.
BP <BP.L>, Royal Dutch Shell <RDSa.L>, BG Group <BG.L>, Tullow
Oil <TLW.L>, Repsol <REP.MC>, Total <TOTF.PA> and StatoilHydro
<STL.OL> shed 0.5 to 1.3 percent.
Whitbread <WTB.L>, Britain's biggest hotel operator, rose
0.5 percent after it reported a better-than-expected first-half
pretax profit, boosted by strong growth at its Costa Coffee
chain. []
The Nordic region's biggest telecoms group, TeliaSonera
<TLSN.ST> was down 0.2 percent. The company said it had secured
near-full ownership of Estonia's Eesti Telekom <ETLAT.TL> and
two thirds of votes in Lithuanian TEO LT <TEO1L.VL> after
separate buy-out bids. []
(Reporting by Atul Prakash, editing by Nigel Stephenson)
