9 Jun 2009

European shares close lower

7:27 am on 9 June 2009

European shares closed lower on Monday, though a late rally in commodities prices helped to limit the losses in the mining and energy sectors.

The pan-European FTSEurofirst 300 index fell 0.8% to 865.11 points.

The index has risen for three out of the past four weeks and has gained 34% since early March.

Anglo American, BHP Billiton, Rio Tinto, Vedanta Resources

and Xstrata fell between 2% - 4.7%.

Lloyds Banking Group closed 7.7% lower after raising almost 3.5 billion pounds ($US5.6 billion) from shareholders, which it will use to repay some of the money injected by the British government last year.

Banco Santander, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank and Societe Generale fell between 1.6% - 4%.

Arcandor slumped 43.6% after Germany refused a request from the the tourism and retail group for help from a federal $US160 billion rescue fund.

The government also took a hard line on a separate emergency state loan needed this week to avert bankruptcy by the group.

Across Europe: In Frankfurt, the DAX index ended at 5,004.72 points, down 72.31 or 1.42%.

In Paris, the CAC-40 index closed at 3,289.66 points, down 49.39 or 1.48%. The Swiss market index closed at 5,391.72 points, down 7.18 or 0.13%.

In London, the FTSE 100 was down 33.34 points, 0.8%, at 4,405.22. The index was 1.2% higher on Friday.

Other markets

In Japan, the Nikkei gained 97.62 points, 1%, to 9,865.63 - its highest close since 7 October.

In Hong Kong, the Hang Seng Index was down 2.28% at 18,253.39.

The Australian stock market was closed for a public holiday. On Friday, the S&P/ASX 200 index rose 36.6 points to close at 3,971.2.

The New Zealand sharemarket finished down on Monday. The NZX 50 index closed 17 points lower to 2816 on turnover of $51.6 million.