London - European shares slipped for a third straight session on Monday, led lower by banks, with poor macro-economic figures in the past days and disappointing results from some major US companies hurting sentiment.
A downgrade of Ireland's sovereign bond ratings by Moody's on Monday also added to market nervousness. Moody's said it expects Irish economic growth to be below its historical trend over the next three to five years.
At 07:05 GMT, the FTSEurofirst 300 index of top European shares was down 0.4% at 1,009.29 points after falling 2% in the previous session and dropping more than 1% on Thursday.
"Investors are trying to assess the degree of slowdown in the recovery that we have seen over the last 12 months," said Keith Bowman, analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown.
"The equity market has become extremely data-sensitive and every economic release will be looked at very closely. The market is likely to stay very volatile," he said.
Financial stocks were among the top losers, with the STOXX Europe 600 banking index falling 0.9%. Barclays, Royal Bank of Scotland and Societe Generale fell 1.3% to 1.4%.
- Reuters