The Associated Press
(AP) — LONDON - European stock markets shed earlier gains Wednesday as Wall Street opened lower after a survey revealed that U.S. employers shed more jobs than anticipated in July, two days before official government data that often set the tone for equities.
In Europe, the FTSE 100 index of leading British shares was down 2.66 points, or 0.1 percent, to 4,688.71 while Germany's DAX fell a minuscule 1.71 point to 5,415.31. The CAC-40 in France was up 22.30 points, or 0.6 percent, higher at 3,498.67.
All three indexes had been solidly higher earlier after a solid batch of earnings before the opening retreat on Wall Street. The Dow Jones industrial average was down 44.36 points, or 0.5 percent, at 9,275.83 soon after the open while the broader Standard & Poor's 500 index fell 4.09 points, or 0.4 percent, to 1,001.56.
The modest declines on Wall Street came after a survey from payrolls firm ADP Wednesday showed that U.S. private sector employers shed 371,000 jobs in July. That stoked fears that Friday's official government data may be worse than anticipated as analysts were expecting ADP to show 350,000 jobs being lost.
"Clearly the trend of economic data in recent weeks is positive, but we could see a little bit of profit taking over the next few days based on the fact that it is going to take some time before the jobs market really starts to improve," said Michael Sheldon, chief market strategist at RDM Financial.
Earlier, earnings, which have helped drive many of the world's markets up to 2009 highs over the last few weeks, helped Europe's main indexes push into positive territory despite earlier Asian losses.
Most interest was on earnings from bailed out British bank Lloyds Banking Group PLC. Though it reported a massive 3.1 billion pound ($5.3 billion) loss for the first half of the year, the share price rose 12 percent as investors backed management's confidence that most of the bad loans had been identified and accounted for.
Other banks in Britain rose in Lloyds' slipstream, most notably Royal Bank of Scotland Group PLC, which is majority-owned by the British government and unveils its own results on Friday. Its shares were up 7 percent, while Barclays PLC, which earlier this week reported bumper profits for the second quarter of the year, rallied another 4 percent.
In France, shares in Societe Generale SG spiked more nearly 7 percent after the bank posted better than expected second-quarter profits and revealed that its corporate and investment banking division saw its revenues nearly double.
Meanwhile, in Germany, Adidas AG topped the DAX leaderboard, rising over 6 percent after the sportswear company indicated that conditions may be improving.
