Sponsored by Digital Look Events

Europe: ECB leaves rates at 4%

News for Spread Betters

PreviousPrevious
NextNext

There's a new Investor Edition of CMC Markets' spread betting platform... and it's exclusive to DigitalLook.com users...

Get full details about Marketmaker:Investor Edition here. Advertisement

Date: Thursday 08 May 2008

LONDON (ShareCast) - European stocks remained in the red after the European Central Bank decided to leave rates unchanged at 4%, in line with expectations.

Elsewhere, the Bank of England also decided against back to back interest rate cuts, leaving borrowing costs at 5%.

Vallourec was lower after first quarter earnings came in below expectations, prompting Merrill Lynch to cut its stance on the steel tubes maker to 'neutral' from 'buy'.

Shares in Munich Re fell after the German insurer reported a drop in first quarter net profits.

The German Dax fell 19 points to 7,056, the French CAC is down 10 points to 5,064, while the Swiss market lost 36 to 7,602.

Lufthansa and Air France-KLM were both lower as the price of crude climbed to $123 per barrel.

French restaurant group Groupe Flo headed south after first quarter net profit fell by 44%.

Deutsche Postbank was on the rise after the German retail bank reported a better than expected quarterly pre-tax profit of €166m.

Household goods giant Unilever was up in London and Amsterdam after it posted a 7.2% rise in first quarter underlying sales, ahead of forecasts.