European shares dip in early trade

Paris - European stocks dipped early on Thursday, with a blue-chip index hovering just below a 2½ year high, as investors looked beyond Washington's last-minute deal to avert a debt default, turning their focus to corporate news.

Shares in Dutch group KPN featured among the biggest losers in Europe, sinking 9% after America Movil dropped its plan to boost its stake in KPN and said it has not yet decided whether to keep its current position in the telecom company.

At 07:31 GMT, the FTSEurofirst 300 index of top European shares was down 0.1% at 1 264.12 points, while the euro zone's blue-chip Euro STOXX 50 index fell 0.3% to 3 006.14 points, retreating from a 2½ year high hit on Wednesday.

"Markets are back to business, the US shutdown was just 'noise' at the end," FXCM analyst Vincent Ganne said.

"The spotlight is now on company news as well as on the Fed's next policy meeting and the outlook for its quantitative easing programme."

Late on Wednesday, the US Congress approved a last-minute agreement to end a partial government shutdown and pull the country back from the brink of a historic debt default that would have had damaging ripple effects across the world.

The widely-expected deal, however, offers only a temporary fix as it funds the US government until Jan. 15 and raises the debt ceiling until February 7, with the prospect of another bitter budget fight and shutdown early next year.

"The deal was widely anticipated. Over the last couple of days, the market had seen some nice gains and now people may take some profits on the announcement of the deal. It is 'buy the rumour, sell the news' thinking," said Philippe Gijsels, head of research at BNP Paribas Fortis Global Markets in Brussels.

"However, from a medium- to longer-term perspective, the drivers remain firmly in place to take equity markets gradually higher. The shutdown of the US government will probably not have helped Q4 GDP. Nevertheless, the worldwide economic upturn remains on track going into 2014."

Around Europe, the UK's FTSE 100 index was down 0.3%, Germany's DAX index down 0.4%, and France's CAC 40 down 0.3%.

On the earnings front, shares in the world's number two retailer Carrefour rose 3 percent after the group said French hypermarket sales returned to growth in the third quarter while China sales also improved.