* Potential Greek debt restructuring in focus
* Finnish vote adds concerns about euro zone bailouts
* Earnings disappoint
* Wall Street set for losses
By Jeremy Gaunt, European Investment Correspondent
LONDON, April 18 (Reuters) - The euro sank on Monday and
European stocks fell into the red for the year as the rise of a
euro-sceptic party in Finland and growing unease about Greek
debt battered investor sentiment in the single currency zone.
Equities were also weaker on disappointing European earnings
and concerns about Japan's coming reporting season, and Wall
Street looked set for losses.
Gold and silver hit new record highs on inflation fears.
MSCI's all-country world stock index <.MIWD00000PUS> started
what is in many places a holiday-shortened week trading down
more than half a percent, led by Europe, where the FTSEurofirst
300 <> was off 1 percent.
The fall wiped out the European index's gains this year,
leaving it in negative territory for 2011.
Japan's Nikkei <> earlier closed down 0.36 percent.
In a weekend election, Finnish voters handed the anti-euro
True Finns party a crucial role in parliament and possibly a
path into government.
Finland's parliament has the right to vote on European Union
requests for bailout funds, meaning it could in theory hold up
costly plans to shore up Portugal and bring stability to debt
markets. [] []
Talk about Greek debt restructuring has also boiled up in
recent weeks, including a Greek newspaper report on Monday that
the government had asked the International Monetary Fund and
European Union to start discussions on a restructuring.
A Greek finance ministry source said the report was not
true. [] []
Equities were also being hurt by an increasing concern that
the current earnings season is not going to be as good as recent
quarters.
"Company results haven't been that great and there are
concerns that margins for a lot of companies are not going to
rise. The bias for the market is more on the downside. There are
a lot of risks and you may get a serious knock," said Koen De
Leus, strategist at KBC Securities in Brussels.
Dutch consumer electronics major Philips Electronics
<PHG.AS> posted lower than expected first-quarter net profit and
said it would divest its struggling television business.
[]
Citigroup Inc <C.N> is expected to report a drop in
quarterly profit and revenue later, as an uncertain trading
environment and weak consumer loan demand hinder its efforts to
move past the financial crisis. []
WEAKER EURO
The euro hit a 10-day low against the dollar on concerns
about Greek restructuring and the Portuguese bailout.
It fell 0.9 percent to $1.4305 <EUR=>
"The focus is turning towards the Greek situation and is
acting as a dampener on the euro -- it would be the first
restructuring and the market has no idea when or whether it will
happen," said Mic Ingenuus, currency strategist at Nordea in
Copenhagen.
Analysts were sceptical the Finnish vote could derail the
Portugal's bailout but it added to already negative sentiment.
On bond markets, Portuguese, Spanish and other lower-rated
euro zone government debt came under pressure.
Greece's five-year credit default swaps -- the cost of
insuring against default -- rose 84 basis points on the day to a
new record high of 1,220 basis points, also dragging peripheral
peers with them.
(Additional reporting by Atul Prakash and Jessica Mortimer;
Editing by John Stonestreet)
