European Shares Open Lower As Earning Weakness Mutes Asia Gains

Frankfurt (Oct 19)  European shares traded lower across the board Wednesday, with major indices slipping modestly as regional corporate earnings disappointed and investors booked profits after Tuesday's solid session.

The broadest measures of European shares, the Stoxx 600 index, fell by around 0.15% in early dealing although there didn't appear to be a definitive direction for trading as the session advances. Britain's FTSE 100 slipped just below its Tuesday close of 7,000 while benchmarks in Germany (-0.24%) and France (-0.19%) opened with losses.

One of the early big share movers of the session came from Paris and the CAC 40, where Carrefour (CRRFY) , Europe's biggest retailer and a global rival to Walmart, rose 1.25% after solid third quarter earnings and like-for-like sales growth of 3.2%. The group said Q3 revenues came in at €27.781 billion ($30.51 billion).

Other early movers include Accor, the French hotelier, after it said its U.K. business would benefit from the weaker pound. Shares in Europe's biggest hotels company rose 4.5% in early trading despite reporting weaker-than-expected Q3 earnings that were heavily influenced by the recent spate of terrorist incidents in its home French market.

In Britain, the mid-cap heavy FTSE 250 was held down by a massive decline in shares of Laird Plc, a maker of smartphone components and a supplier to Apple (APPL) Shares in the group fell 46% in London trading, its biggest one-day decline on record, after it issued a gloomy full-year profit projection that could be linked to the scrapping of Samsung's Galaxy Note 7 smartphone.

Source: TheStreet