Allied Irish Banks, Bank of Ireland post steep share decline
By Sarah Turner, MarketWatch
LONDON (MarketWatch) -- European shares edged lower on Monday, as losses for oil majors worked to offset an advance from miners and Vodafone Group.
The Stoxx Europe 600 index (ST:SXXP 263.12, -0.47, -0.18%) declined 0.1% to 263.51, with oil majors giving up some ground made in recent weeks.
Shares of BP (UK:BP. 627.50, -4.02, -0.64%) (BP 56.69, +0.01, +0.02%) lost 0.8% while Royal Dutch Shell (UK:RDSA 1,910, -16.50, -0.86%) (RDS.A 57.32, -0.06, -0.11%) shares were down 0.9%.
"The 11% rally since Feb. 5 is nearing its end, we believe," said European equity strategists at Morgan Stanley. "Our thesis is that good growth will lead to tightening measures and struggling equity markets this year," they added.
Strategists at Deutsche Bank said that they had a 260 target for the index by the end of March. "Had we not had the near cataclysmic events with peripheral European Union sovereigns then we would likely be much higher," they added.
Greece has been at the centre of recent sovereign finance concerns and the Greek ASE Composite Index (XX:??? 2,148, +84.89, +4.12%) moved down 1% to 2,127.18.
The country announced that it will sell bonds to raise 5 billion euros, a move expected to test a pledge of financial support from European leaders made late last week. Read more on Greek bond issue.
Still, the euro (CUR_EURUSD 1.3455, -0.0015, -0.1114%) managed to extend gains from last week, trading up 0.3% at $1.3452. The European Commission's economic sentiment indicator for the 16-nation euro zone rose 1.8 points in March to 97.7, above expectations.
As the dollar weakened against the euro, metal futures and miners gained, with copper futures up 9 cents at $3.50 per pound and copper miner Xstrata (UK:XTA 1,224, +31.00, +2.60%) shares up 2.4%.
On the regional level, the U.K. FTSE 100 index (UK:UKX 5,694, -8.73, -0.15%) lost 0.1% to 5,697.35, the French CAC-40 index (FR:PX1 3,982, -7.03, -0.18%) declined 0.2% to 3,982.52 while the German DAX index (DX:DAX 6,139, +18.71, +0.31%) climbed 0.4% to 6,141.57.
Russia's RTS index traded up 1.6% to 1,543.46. As many as 40 people were killed Monday by two rush-hour explosions in Moscow's metro system, according to media reports. Read more on Moscow metro blasts.
Asian shares ended mixed, while U.S. stocks moved higher in early trading.
The Irish ISEQ 20 index lost 2.2% to 502.93, pulled down by losses for Allied Irish Banks (IE:AIB 1.40, -0.30, -17.80%) (AIB 3.80, -0.65, -14.61%) , down 18.1%, and Bank of Ireland (IE:BIR 1.24, -0.15, -11.08%) (IRE 6.84, -0.60, -8.07%) , down 8.7%. Read more on Irish banks.
"Speculation that haircuts will be severe and that the regulator will opt for stringent capital requirements has reached fever pitch," said analysts at Davy Stockbrokers.
