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Europe shares end lower

London - European shares hit their six-week closing low for the second day in a row on Friday after cautious comments by German chancellor cooled market hopes that Germany would back monetary measures to tackle a debt crisis in the euro zone.

Responding to a call for “decisive action” from the British Prime Minister, David Cameron, Chancellor Angela Merkel stressed that European institutions “cannot pretend to have powers don’t have”.

The European Central Bank is not allowed to buy sovereign bonds on the primary market but a growing number of market participants have called for the central bank to intervene as a lender of last resorts for struggling euro zone countries.

“The [market’s] scepticism comes from the realisation that there is no magic bullet in place to solve this crisis,” said Giancarlo Perasso, chief economist at Redux-Matrix, which has $100m under management.

The FTSEurofirst 300 index of top European shares provisionally closed 0.5% lower at 952.99 points. The pan-European gauge was down 3.2 percent for the week.
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Rand - Dollar
18.97
-0.1%
Rand - Pound
24.10
+0.0%
Rand - Euro
20.61
-0.1%
Rand - Aus dollar
12.37
+0.4%
Rand - Yen
0.13
+0.5%
Platinum
906.50
-1.8%
Palladium
1,010.52
+0.4%
Gold
2,156.15
-0.2%
Silver
24.97
-0.3%
Brent-ruolie
86.89
+1.8%
Top 40
65,948
-0.5%
All Share
72,132
-0.4%
Resource 10
53,232
-0.2%
Industrial 25
99,741
-0.7%
Financial 15
16,581
-0.3%
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