Earnings weigh on European shares

Edinburgh - European stocks fell on Thursday, hindered by weak corporate results from companies including French tyre-maker Michelin, despite receiving support from better-than-expected eurozone business activity data.

Michelin and Unilever cited poor demand from emerging markets as the former cut its full-year revenue goal and the latter reported weaker-than-expected quarterly sales. Unilever's London-listed shares were down 2.4%.

""I think there still is going to be earnings growth, but there is some evidence that international operations are weak," said Jasper Lawler, market analyst at CMC Markets.

"Eurozone economies still aren't convincingly strong, and emerging markets aren't providing much respite either."

Britain's biggest grocer Tesco and French advertising group Publicis also fell sharply after reporting disappointing numbers.

Tesco and Michelin were the biggest fallers on the pan-European FTSEurofirst 300, both slipping 5.2%.

The index was down 0.6% to 1 300.47 by 13:00.

Of the STOXX Europe 600 companies to report results so far this quarter, 36% of companies have missed expectations, compared to 29% on Wall Street's S&P 500 .

Among a handful of outperformers, Finland's Nokia beat market expectations as it reported strong third-quarter profit growth and lifted the profitability outlook for its core network unit on the back of network roll-outs in North America and China, sending its shares up 3.7%.

Danish industrial enzymes maker Novozymes also reported third-quarter earnings above expectations and raised its full-year outlook for operating profit growth. Its shares rose 6.6%.

The market briefly turned flat after data from the eurozone showed that businesses performed much better than expected this month.

However, they did so by slashing prices again, and optimism about the future fell to its lowest level in over a year, surveys showed on Thursday.

Earlier data showed Germany's activity increased in both the manufacturing and services industries, but France's business downturn deteriorated.

The German DAX outperformed European peers, falling just 0.2%.

"Germany saved the day but people are still bearish and I think we are going to see some more weakness," said Mike Reuter, a broker at Tradition.