SF: European Stocks Are Little Changed as Total Retreats; RBS Jumps
March 27 (Bloomberg) -- European stocks were little changed as oil companies dropped and investors awaited a report that may show consumer confidence in the U.S. declined this month. U.S. index futures were little changed, while Asian shares rose.
Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc surged 4.5 percent as the U.K. government was said to have held talks to sell part of its stake in the lender to Middle Eastern sovereign-wealth funds. Total SA dropped 4.7 percent as France's largest oil producer said it will consider drilling a relief well to stop a leak from a platform in the North Sea.
The Stoxx Europe 600 Index rose less than 0.1 percent to 268.19 at 1:37 p.m. in London, after earlier advancing as much as 0.7 percent. The benchmark measure has still increased 9.7 percent this quarter, its biggest rally in the first three months of a year since 1998. Futures on the Standard & Poor's 500 Index expiring in June fell 0.1 percent today, while the MSCI Asia Pacific Index climbed 1.9 percent.
"Total is a heavyweight in the indexes, so it has a lot of impact," said Lionel Heurtin, a fund manager at Ofi Asset Management in Paris, which oversees $67 billion. "The news reminds us of BP, so it's normal to be cautious."
U.S. Consumer Confidence
A measure of consumer confidence in the U.S. fell this month, a release at 10 a.m. New York time may show, according to economists' estimates. The New York-based Conference Board's gauge probably slipped to 70 from 70.8 in February.
A separate release may show that house prices in 20 U.S. cities fell at a slower pace in the year to January, economists said. The S&P/Case-Shiller index of property values in 20 cities, which is due at 9 a.m. today, dropped 3.8 percent from January 2011, its smallest decline in three months, according to the median forecast of 32 economists surveyed by Bloomberg News.
The Stoxx 600 advanced yesterday after German business confidence unexpectedly climbed and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke said that the U.S. continued to need accommodative monetary policy.
The VStoxx Index, which measures the cost of options on the Euro Stoxx 50 Index, snapped two days of losses, rising 3.1 percent to 22 today. The volume of shares changing hands on the Stoxx 600 was 4 percent lower than the 30-day average, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
Fed Bank of New York President Bill C. Dudley and Steven Kamin, director of the Fed Board's division of international finance, will speak at a hearing in Washington on euro-area aid.
Euro-Area Action
European Central Bank President Mario Draghi said after stock markets closed yesterday that euro-area governments should continue to take "decisive measures." The ECB has injected more than 1 trillion euros ($1.3 trillion) into the banking system since December.
"No single institution can carry the burden of addressing a set of challenges that are simultaneously economic, financial and fiscal," Draghi said in Berlin yesterday. "The current stabilization should not make us pause in our responses."
Finance ministers from the 17 nations using the euro meet in Copenhagen on March 30. Chancellor Angela Merkel said yesterday that Germany may let the euro's temporary and permanent rescue funds run in parallel.
RBS jumped 4.5 percent to 29 pence as two people familiar with the matter said that the U.K. government has held talks about selling part of its stake in the lender. The U.K. Treasury said that it will only sell the government's holding when it obtains maximum value for taxpayers.
